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How to texture and light up a scene like this

Posted By johnflivingston 4 Years Ago
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johnflivingston
johnflivingston
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Hi Greetings,
I am new to 3D animation and iClone. I would like to know how to light up a scene like the attached image.
Like lights are distributed to all the props and character evenly and very light shadow is casted in the bottom. Let me know how to achieve this in iClone.
I tried different lights in iClone but everything ended up unsuccessfully. I watched some tutorials and tried them but they gave a different result.
If there is a tutorial video out there that will be really helpful. 

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/40125211-df30-4f6f-a705-b62a.jpg
4u2ges
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4u2ges
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Some tips and possible scenario:

Set Ambient Light Color to White or close. It would equalize your lights to some degree.
Disable GI if it is enabled.
Find some good HDR image for IBL to generate reflections in eyes and other objects.
Add point light somewhere at the top.
Add 1 key light and play with its light multiplier and shadow settings for desired effect.
Enable ambient occlusion and play with settings. A touch of it would not hurt when lighting is flat.
Tweak Brightness and Contrast in effects. Add Color filter and play with it.
Not sure what you use for the sky, but if possible set its self illumination to maximum.
You may also crank self illumination for objects to have them appear flat (those you do not need to reflect light).
Balance everything above.

Something I quickly made:

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/fd022dea-a6e2-4681-9884-2b74.jpg







planetstardragon
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it would be easier to do in cta4 because it has a photo cut out quality to it

but if I were to attempt that look in iclone-   I wouldn't use lights at all - they add to many shiny / white spots -  if you need to use lights,  learn to use them abnormally lol,  like use an almost black light to brighten room without creating white glare spots... use a black light for the purpose of just enhancing shadows -  but don't use them to lighten your scene.

For your character textures,  you'd want to use a single solid color - flat ...no specular,  and use pbr to get a sheen,  not a shine...
use all the lighting from the visual panel,  not going to give you an exact formula because you should know this panel well to get lights like this ...
then go to the filters sub panel in the visual panel,  and brighten up the scene a bit ....
respect that you will only get but "so far" in iclone for a basic - unmastered shot,  that you will then send to your video editor to further colorize, saturate, yadda yadda the image to bring it home.

for your props,  just use cut out images whenever you can,  always use the easiest / simplest approach to tell your story,   paint your backgrounds and load them as an image for the environment.  don't try to imitate mixed media as one large 3D set,  because that's what your scene is,  a 3D model up front,  a cartoon image based background,  and some cut out images of fruit.  -  if you want to make the fruit spin,  then make a new project specifically for that piece of fruit to make an image overlay animation for iclone - otherwise trying to light up all the different models like that is a science project,  not movie making,  cheat, cheat, cheat!!

this is how far i got on a quick test of my above theory in iclone alone, but to take it further, I'd load this clip to my video editor to push the colors - more saturation, more contrast,  tweaking the brightness -   again,  you can get but so far in iclone,  so train yourself to know it's limits and "this is the best I'll get"  -  and use that point to take it further with video editor filters -  the biggest mistake would be to try to get a final product from the first stage of production.

finally,  learn to read the image -  if you simply look at that image and deconstruct it in your imagination,  you can see that the shadows on the objects are differemt.  the tell tale is the strawberry over the characters head casts no shadow - there is no detail in the texture on the characters face - just a solid color,  there is no shine on the character...it's very flat..just basic shadows. the fruits over the character have white around their edges,  thus they are cut out images and look different than the fruit on the characters tray, and the background is a 2D image with 0 depth, no shadows,  thus a simple cartoon stylized painting.  The level of saturation in the image is post production, because Iclone has a limit to how much you can saturate an object in an image before loosing detail.


https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/f6b7f69e-f0d3-426f-8fc8-90ef.gif
this image is no formal lights, - goal bright without being shiny, just the visual panel lighting,  ibl, and using filters to make the scene brighter.  If I were to use lights at this point,  it would be solely to make shadows darker or point them a different direction - or add some color to the scene-  but all the brightening aspects of the lighting would come from the visual panel tools. ( that's just the technique for this style of lighting,  not a general rule )


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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

johnflivingston
johnflivingston
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Thank you @4u2ges for your reply.
Wow, the asset that you quickly made looks very good. And that is the same result I expected. 
I'll try all your tips and ill keep you posted.   If you could share the screenshot of the lights you used and the setting, it will be really helpful.
Thank you so much.
johnflivingston
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Thanks for the tip @planetstardragon.  I'll try them all.
Using a cut out image is a great idea. 
Thank you so much.
4u2ges
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I changed the avatar (because of licensing) and uploaded a project for reference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iP8QzT2lFKijQsSQPzA8RNshS_79aIpe/view?usp=sharing




johnflivingston
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Thank you so much, 4u2ges. It means a lot.



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