How to point a light on one figure only
pauljacob11
Posts: 203
I have a 3-character scene and I want a spotlight for example to point only at just one of the characters without shedding any light on the other two. Please tell me it's easy-peazy.
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Two obvious options -one is to add the new light, delete everything bu the figure you want lit, and render - save as png or .tiff so that you get a mask and just layer it over a render with the general lighting.
The other option is to get the AoA light that matches the light you want and use the surface flagging feature to tell it to illuminate only your figure.
Thank you Richard. The first option is doable but it's not clear to me where to layer the png or tiff over a render. Is this done in Studio or Photoshop? If in Studio, then please give me a how-to. TIA for your help.
Layering individual renders is done as postwork, which means programs like Gimp and Photoshop. By rendering to a PNG, the background remains transparent so you can render the figure on their own and position them as needed in the main image.
Thanks HeraldOfFire, appreciate your help.
Richard, could you explain this a bit more? This sounds like info I should learn.
or point the spot light at the one figure and change the spread angle so it doesn't hit the other two.
That's the first thing I tried, but by the time the other two characters were excluded, the light was too weak to light the other figure. I think the ability to light a character separately from others in a scene should be developed for future versions. Hear, hear!
you know you can turn the limits off the intensity and crank it up higher if you need to
Richard, could you explain this a bit more? This sounds like info I should learn.
You need the AoA Advanced light of the right type from the store. Then you pick a surface property to be the flag - here I've used Diffuse strength = 99% as that won't make a visible difference, especially given that the surfaces are going to be lit differently and told the light to illuminate only the selected surfaces. I've set the left sphere's Diffuse Strength to 99%. As you can see the AoA spot is lighting only the sphere, but is correctly casting a shadow from the unlit sphere.
Thanks Fisty, didn't think of that. Appreciate the tip.
Hmm, spotlights often hit the background in a concentrated way (yep, in a circle, that's why they are a spotlight) so depending on what part of the character I want to light, I use Linear Point Lights. You can set the starting and ending falloff, and lower it down by your character. Use Distant Lights then Linear Point Lights by your characters' faces- side lighting is fun with these. Everywhere you see a dot, there is a linear point. (There's twenty lights in this scene, took me several weeks to get it the way I wanted it.) Not all linear points are identified, this is just an example.
The girl on the back wall has two.
EDIT: Click to enlarge, it looks darker because it's shrunk down. And keep in mind, this was a dark nightclub scene- which is another reason why Linear Points are so nice- varying the intensity is easy to see and work with in the viewport. I'll post a lighter version that was just done by lightening the entire scene in Corel Photo Paint.
I think I'd better also explain- this is the Wine Walk Limbo, where for the RRRR contest we had to use the products we drew for the contest, then create a whacky sport.
And note the walls, by using Linear Point lights, no glaring spotlight circles to fix. There's no postwork done on the walls at all where the Linears are.