Daz Poor facial lighting

[jonathanlivingston]

Hi, I created the apartment where my comic will take place. Here the family is in the salon, around the table.
I don't use any tools like camera cutaway, Iray Interior Speed Lights or Iray Interior Camera, that take advantage of iray section planes. The environment is "all closed" and I have put enough lights all around. The asset I used is

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.
The question is: why is the room well lit, while the character's face is so dark?



In these comics, I noticed that the lighting is more uniform:






How could I achieve a good lighting? Is my setting a good starting point?

Thanks

 

[Nicke]

Characters in a room will almost always look poorly lit compared to the room itself, unless they happen to stand right next to a light source. The "easiest" is to add some spotlights out of sight for the camera that are aimed at the characters where you want more light. Then it depends on how bothered you are by realism, if you want to make sure the spotlights come from the direction of a light source in the room etc.

Some people swear by mesh lights instead. Some people use a lot of point lights, it's all down to you liking your method and the results.

EDIT: And don't forget postwork in photoshop or gimp or something, you can do a lot of tweaking there too.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

Characters in a room will almost always look poorly lit compared to the room itself, unless they happen to stand right next to a light source. The "easiest" is to add some spotlights out of sight for the camera that are aimed at the characters where you want more light. Then it depends on how bothered you are by realism, if you want to make sure the spotlights come from the direction of a light source in the room etc.

Some people swear by mesh lights instead. Some people use a lot of point lights, it's all down to you liking your method and the results.

So the solution is to put further lights on my characters? Thanks for the advice. The thing is that I want to give realism to my renders, so it won't be easy to add spotlights without make a mess with the shadows...

P.S.

May I ask you if the lighting of the room is realistic enough? Thanks

 

[Nicke]

So the solution is to put further lights on my characters? Thanks for the advice. The thing is that I want to give realism to my renders, so it won't be easy to add spotlights without make a mess with the shadows...

P.S.

May I ask you if the lighting of the room is realistic enough? Thanks

I'll be honest. I'm not that bothered with realism when it comes to light sources and such. And even less so when it's night/evening renders.

If you absolutely want it to make sense that the light on characters come from light sources in the room, you'll have to establish the light sources, maybe with a wider shot, and then you can put spotlights from those directions when you do close-ups. You can reinforce directional lighting from lightsources in wider shots with ghost lights for example. There's people around here that are better than me at working with lighting too, maybe one of them will jump in with more tips.

Your room looks fine to me, not sure about how "realistic" it is. We can't see several of the light sources. The far right corner looks very well lit, not sure where that comes from. When light on walls is cut off a foot below the ceiling, it usually means ceiling lights that are blocked side-ways by the lamp's frame, but we don't see any ceiling lamps in the shot. I wouldn't react to this at all if I saw it in a game though. And there can be explanations for it too.

Anyway, here's an image showing the difference spotlights make:
In the image, there's 11 lights, all of them on the ceiling.
In the left is nothing else.
In the middle, 4 spotlights have been added.
The right one is the middle picture + postwork. Postwork in this case is very basic lightroom filters. adjusting exposure and some other things.

Spoiler: This is Beth.

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[jonathanlivingston]

I'll be honest. I'm not that bothered with realism when it comes to light sources and such. And even less so when it's night/evening renders.

If you absolutely want it to make sense that the light on characters come from light sources in the room, you'll have to establish the light sources, maybe with a wider shot, and then you can put spotlights from those directions when you do close-ups. You can reinforce directional lighting from lightsources in wider shots with ghost lights for example. There's people around here that are better than me at working with lighting too, maybe one of them will jump in with more tips.

Your room looks fine to me, not sure about how "realistic" it is. We can't see several of the light sources. The far right corner looks very well lit, not sure where that comes from. When light on walls is cut off a foot below the ceiling, it usually means ceiling lights that are blocked side-ways by the lamp's frame, but we don't see any ceiling lamps in the shot. I wouldn't react to this at all if I saw it in a game though. And there can be explanations for it too.

Anyway, here's an image showing the difference spotlights make:
In the image, there's 11 lights, all of them on the ceiling.
In the left is nothing else.
In the middle, 4 spotlights have been added.
The right one is the middle picture + postwork. Postwork in this case is very basic lightroom filters. adjusting exposure and some other things.

Spoiler: This is Beth.

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

I thank you very much for your explanation. About the sources of the lights: you're absolutely right! I can put the lamps over the sources, so that it will be more realistic.
And thank you for the advices about the wide shot to establish the direction of the lights: then it will be easier to put addictional spotlights.

P.S.

Of course I will retouch the renders with Photoshop, but I think I must have a good starting image for to get a very good one in postwork

 

[MissFortune]

Example A of why learning manual lighting is a smart choice. Especially for VNs/Comic, where consistency is key.

My usual advice for anyone new to lighting interiors is to follow the ceiling lighting/wall lighting that's already there and replace the in-built light source (the emission in the surface pane) with ghost lights. Then use spotlights (with or without the render emitter on) to accent the characters in a way that follows the main/closest light source.

The comics exampled aren't necessarily good or realistic, except for the third one. They're largely washed/blown out with what looks like one large light source. Shadows are a good thing in renders, but it's knowing how to create them that's the hard part.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

Example A of why learning manual lighting is a smart choice. Especially for VNs/Comic, where consistency is key.

My usual advice for anyone new to lighting interiors is to follow the ceiling lighting/wall lighting that's already there and replace the in-built light source (the emission in the surface pane) with ghost lights. Then use spotlights (with or without the render emitter on) to accent the characters in a way that follows the main/closest light source.

The comics exampled aren't necessarily good or realistic, except for the third one. They're largely washed/blown out with what looks like one large light source. Shadows are a good thing in renders, but it's knowing how to create them that's the hard part.

Thanks for your advice - I understand what you mean. Maybe I have to find a compromise between realism and impact

 

[TessaXYZ]

I mean... you put lights all around the room surrounding the characters, placed the characters in the center of the room, and they're all facing away and down from the lighting. Of course the lighting is going to be poor on their faces.

Put a chandelier above the table.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

I mean... you put lights all around the room surrounding the characters, placed the characters in the center of the room, and they're all facing away and down from the lighting. Of course the lighting is going to be poor on their faces.

Put a chandelier above the table.

You're right

 

[osanaiko]

Another thing to keep in mind about lighting: "realistic placement" of light sources does NOT result in a render that feels the same as looking at things in the real world.
This is because when you are looking out of your own eyes they are constantly adjusting the brightness allowed to fall on the retina by changing the size of the pupil. Every time you glance at a light on the ceiling or a bright patch on the wall where a spotlight is reflected, your eyes adjust so the light level is correct to see as much detail as possible despite the brightness. Then if you look at a face deeply shadowed because there is a light behind the head, your eyes adjust again to see detail as much as possible.

With a still 2d image, forcing this automatic adjustment not possible because the relative brightness of all objects is fixed. The various objects in the image are not radiating significant amounts of light, not enough to cause your eyes to adjust the pupil aperture. (note this is part of why the "HDR" thing was marketed so hard for a while)

So if we think about all this, we arrive at the same secret that movie filmographers have to deal with in every scene they shoot: you need artificial light sources to force the brightness of the important parts of the image to the value that aesthetically looks correct. And how? the same as how artists have known for 100s of years, the image creator has to adjust the apparent illumination of what they create.

Practically that is done by the solutions all the other experienced render-meisters in this thread have given you:

a) add extra secret lights to get the illumination where you need it. these are hidden off camera but are one way to make faces "pop"

b) use post editing to brighten/darken the areas of the image as needed.

and special bonus:

c) exactly as MissFortune said: getting good shadows to show the 3d shape of character bodies/faces is critical for "good" renders. the technique of "replace the wall behind the camera with a huge emissive pane" just gives that flat, bland, directionless illumination that is so common in those "quick and dirty" comic styles.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

Another thing to keep in mind about lighting: "realistic placement" of light sources does NOT result in a render that feels the same as looking at things in the real world.
This is because when you are looking out of your own eyes they are constantly adjusting the brightness allowed to fall on the retina by changing the size of the pupil. Every time you glance at a light on the roof or a bright patch on the wall where a spotlight is reflected, your eyes adjust so the light level is correct to see as much detail as possible despite the brightness. Then if you look at a face deeply shadowed because there is a light behind the head, your eyes adjust again to see detail as much as possible.

With a still 2d image, forcing this automatic adjustment not possible because the relative brightness of all objects is fixed. The various objects in the image are not radiating significant amounts of light, not enough to cause your eyes to adjust the pupil aperture. (note this is part of why the "HDR" thing was marketed so hard for a while)

So if we think about all this, we arrive at the same secret that movie filmographers have to deal with in every scene they shoot: you need artificial light sources to force the brightness of the important parts of the image to the value that aesthetically looks correct. And how? the same as how artists have known for 100s of years, the image creator has to adjust the apparent illiumination of what they create.

Practically that is done by the solutions all the other experienced render-meisters in this thread have given you:

a) add extra secret lights to get the illumination where you need it. these are hidden off camera but are one way to make faces "pop"

b) use post editing to brighten/darked the areas of the image as needed.

and special bonus:

c) exactly as MissFortune said: getting good shadows to show the 3d shape of character bodies/faces is critical for "good" renders. the technique of "replace the wall behind the camera with a huge emissive pane" just gives that flat, bland, directionless illumination that is so common in those "quick and dirty" comic styles.

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[Alboe Interactive]

Hi, I created the apartment where my comic will take place. Here the family is in the salon, around the table.
I don't use any tools like camera cutaway, Iray Interior Speed Lights or Iray Interior Camera, that take advantage of iray section planes. The environment is "all closed" and I have put enough lights all around. The asset I used is

You must be registered to see the links

.

Are you using the IES profiles from Architectural Lighting Rig on the built-in lights of this environment or other props? IES profiles basically point the light in a certain direction, a lot of props are not set up to do this by default and may point the light in undesirable directions. You should confirm that a particular prop works properly with an IES profile or use correctly configured light props from a product like

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. There are plenty of IES profiles that splay the light out to the sides, but it's entirely possible the lights in your set are losing a significant portion of the visible surface area because of this issue.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

Thanks for the suggestion, but my problem is finding a "booster" to have an easier way to get more impact for my comic.

Now I'm trying with large emissives.

Maybe the solution I posted can be taken into consideration for night scenes...

 

[jonathanlivingston]

I've tried to make another scene with ghost lights in front of the window and two spotlights for the face. This is the result with a little postwork on Photoshop:



I think I'm far away from the result I wanna achieve, which is Y3DF in "the circle" (I post some examples below):

View attachment 031.webp View attachment 007.webp View attachment 012.webp

1- my lighting seems more flatten
2- the skins: Y3DF ones looks more smooth, mine more grainy

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Nicke]

1- my lighting seems more flatten
2- the skins: Y3DF ones looks more smooth, mine more grainy

Any suggestions?

My opinion: It looks flat because it lacks contrast. The scene looks equally lit from all directions. There is no impression that the light is coming in through the windows, and the girl's shadow on the bed is from the sides, not from behind.

Also maybe relevant for something: The brightest thing in the entire scene is the wooden panel on the foot-end of the bed, where is that coming from? It looks a little as if the room doesn't have 4 walls? Does it have a ceiling?

I would increase contrast by: Move the ghostlight outside. Make sure the HDRI+ghostlight is shining in through the window.

If the light on the front of the character is just 2 spotlights (I'm pretty sure there must be more lightsources at play, or you're missing walls/ceiling so that the HDRI shines in), reduce at least one of them in power. I would either put a fairly strong one on her left (our left), so that it sorta looks to be coming from the windows, and just a weak one on the right (our right), if that side of her face is too dark. Alternatively I'd turn that lamp on and reinforce its light with a spotlight if needed.

If I thought this made the room overall too dark, I'd put a WEAK ghostlight on the ceiling to bring in some ambience.

Amateur opinions, these. Keep that in mind

 

[jonathanlivingston]

My opinion: It looks flat because it lacks contrast. The scene looks equally lit from all directions. There is no impression that the light is coming in through the windows, and the girl's shadow on the bed is from the sides, not from behind.

Also maybe relevant for something: The brightest thing in the entire scene is the wooden panel on the foot-end of the bed, where is that coming from? It looks a little as if the room doesn't have 4 walls? Does it have a ceiling?

I would increase contrast by: Move the ghostlight outside. Make sure the HDRI+ghostlight is shining in through the window.

If the light on the front of the character is just 2 spotlights (I'm pretty sure there must be more lightsources at play, or you're missing walls/ceiling so that the HDRI shines in), reduce at least one of them in power. I would either put a fairly strong one on her left (our left), so that it sorta looks to be coming from the windows, and just a weak one on the right (our right), if that side of her face is too dark. Alternatively I'd turn that lamp on and reinforce its light with a spotlight if needed.

If I thought this made the room overall too dark, I'd put a WEAK ghostlight on the ceiling to bring in some ambience.

Amateur opinions, these. Keep that in mind

Thank you for all the suggestions
Indeed you are right: my image was too flat, due to the same amount of light in two opposite directions. The room is closed: 4 walls and a ceiling.
I have moved the ghost lights outside and dimmed the spotlights as you suggested. This is the result:

WITHOUT POSTWORK



POSTWORKED



Apart from the lights, would you please tell me if the skin looks too grainy? I used this one:

https://f95zone.to/threads/sahel-hd-signature-smile-hd-expression-for-genesis-8-female.9118/

Because I like bluejaunte's skins, but many have problems with seams. This is one of those who render without problems.

The goal I would like to achieve is Y3DF in "circle":



But I think I'm light years far from it

Thanks

 

[Nicke]

Apart from the lights, would you please tell me if the skin looks too grainy? I used this one:

Because I like bluejaunte's skins, but many have problems with seams. This is one of those who render without problems.

The goal I would like to achieve is Y3DF in "circle":

I think the lighting looks better. Personally I would still put more contrast on her face by having a light that only hits one side of her face. Most logical way to achieve it would be to light that lamp.

I don't react in any particular way to her skin.

As for Y3DF, and this is just my honest opinion, I think those renders are very average. I'm not comparing with myself, but the people on here that put out games with good art. What I noticed most of all was the badly clipping thumbs in the 3rd picture.

 

[jonathanlivingston]

I think the lighting looks better. Personally I would still put more contrast on her face by having a light that only hits one side of her face. Most logical way to achieve it would be to light that lamp.

Thank you for the answer and for the further suggestion

I don't react in any particular way to her skin.

Oh ok: maybe I'm too critical of myself. It's just that most skins I see in comics and games are smoother and more plastic-like than mine

As for Y3DF, and this is just my honest opinion, I think those renders are very average. I'm not comparing with myself, but the people on here that put out games with good art. What I noticed most of all was the badly clipping thumbs in the 3rd picture.

I understand. Maybe I like their works, because they were the first comics I read and therefore they fascinate me, and I would like to replicate their graphics. But it's also true that every "artist" (I don't put myself in this group) must have their own style. Taking ideas from the best is good, but then you have to create your own work. I think I should start recognizing good artists from bad ones

Thank you again

 

[Nicke]

Oh ok: maybe I'm too critical of myself. It's just that most skins I see in comics and games are smoother and more plastic-like than mine

If you want it smoother, you can mess around with the surfaces on your character. The first, and risk free, setting to make skin smoother with is reducing the bump, all the way to 0 if you like. You can reduce the normal map, and the displacement if the character have one. Some might make your the skin appear smoother, but will also make it more reflective (the roughness settings). Save your character before you mess around with the surfaces! We're in deep waters here

 

[jonathanlivingston]

If you want it smoother, you can mess around with the surfaces on your character. The first, and risk free, setting to make skin smoother with is reducing the bump, all the way to 0 if you like. You can reduce the normal map, and the displacement if the character have one. Some might make your the skin appear smoother, but will also make it more reflective (the roughness settings). Save your character before you mess around with the surfaces! We're in deep waters here

To be honest, I don't like smooth leathers: they look fake. My characters always have their imperfections, pores, grains... I've always seen smooth skin in comics, so I thought readers wanted that kind of people in stories.
Thanks for the tips with the surfaces. Another way to make it smoother is the post denoiser, and I think a lot of artists also use it to reduce rendering times. The thing is, I never know how many iterations to set, so I leave that setting alone