Strong lighting/shadows contrast?

giaour94_fdcc6cb22c

I don't seem to be able to find anything to intensify shadow and light regions on figures (Chiaroscuro). I am after something like the look of a Caravaggio painting. Any suggestions? Ideally with the built-in lighting...

mjc1016

3Delight or Iray?

Khory

It can be difficult in Iray. When I did my light set I had to adjust the tone mapping so the scene was darker and then use what would normally be too bright lights for darker shadows. http://www.daz3d.com/scintillant-portrait-lights A couple of the promos with M7 show the darker shadowing I ended up with.

Tobor

Intensifying the difference between shadow and light is another name for contrast. You could try fiddling with the Tone Mapping settings (if using Iray), or you could light your scene to get more-or-less what you want -- Khory's product looks like an excellent road to that -- and then use the well-worn techniques for manipulating photos in Photoshop or GIMP to get it exactly like you want. 

If you are after harder shadows (delineation), a common element in chiaroscuro and certain Baroque pieces, opt for light sources with the smallest emitting element. These include distant light (the "hardest" shadow of all), as well as point and spot lights, with emitter geometry set to Point.

Caravaggio's backdrops tended to be dark, or even non-existent. So be sure your background is either not lit, or render with a transparency (no background) and put one in using a graphics program.

Now, some people would say they want to avoid postwork, but frankly, this is equivalent to Caravaggio saying he'd rather use the paint straight from the tube. We know he didn't. (Or maybe he did, and that's why he was killed...)