Lighting a Close-Up of a Head

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Lighting and Rendering > Introduction to Lighting >

To light a subject, such as a talking head or a still life, it helps to think in terms of how you would light the same subject if you were working on a stage set or in a photo studio. In other words, you can place the lights wherever you want, adjust their intensity, tint their color, and so on. There are some widely used guidelines to lighting this way, and this section introduces them briefly.

NoteAs with architectural lighting, you can use photometric lights, but they do the job only if the scene has been modeled to a real-world scale. In this exercise, you will use Standard lights to simulate a 3-point lighting scenario like they do in photo studios and television sets.

Set up the scene:

In the \tutorials\lights directory, open the file pito_head_shot.max.
The scene has a camera that is set up to render a head shot of the 3D cartoon character named Pito.

Look at the default lighting:

On the main toolbar, click Quick Render.
3ds Max renders the camera view.

Default lighting of Pito

This is not a bad rendering of Pito, but we can do better.

Add a light:

On the Create panel, turn on Lights, and then click Target Spot to turn it on.
In the Top viewport, drag from the bottom left corner of the viewport to create a light that is aimed at Pito's head.

Aiming a target spot light at Pito

3ds Max creates the light. However, it is at ground level.

Light is created initially at ground level.
In the Front viewport, use the Move tool to move the spotlight so that it is slightly higher than Pito’s head.
Select the spotlight target (small yellow square and move it up to Pito’s eye level.
Select the spotlight again (the yellow cone). Go to the Modify panel, and on the General Parameters rollout, turn on Shadows. (The default method of Shadow Map will work fine.)
In the Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout, set the Multiplier value to 1.5 to increase the light’s intensity.
Right-click the Camera view to make it current, and then click Quick Render.

We can see that Pito is illuminated on one side, but the shadow areas are too dark. In general, faces look better and more interesting if they are lit at an angle, but one has to compensate with a fill light to get rid of the dark areas. This is why flash photos usually don't look as good as studio portraits.

Add a fill light:

On the Create panel, turn on Lights, and then click Target Spot to turn it on.
In the Top viewport, click and drag to create a target spot on the right side aiming at Pito. The two lights can form about a 90-degree angle with Pito's face.
In the Front view, move the fill light and its target to about Pito’s eye level.
On the Modify panel, set the Fill light’s multiplier value to about 0.6. A fill light is usually less intense than a main light as its purpose is to simulate global illumination (bouncing light).
Activate the Camera viewport, then click Quick Render.

Here is a good, balanced portrait of Pito. Compared to the default light, it is brighter and you can see more detail, but there are shadows enough to make Pito look three dimensional.

Add a Back Light

A back light’s sole purpose is to separate the character from the background. It is a light you place behind the character to emphasize the silhouette against the background. This can be especially useful when shooting a dark-haired character against a dark environment.

On the Create panel, click the Lights button and then click Target Spot.
In the Left viewport, drag from above and to the left of the character to create a light that is aimed at Pito's head.
With the backlight selected, go to the Modify panel and notice that the backlight's intensity retained the Multiplier value of 0.6 used on the previous light in the scene. Set the Multiplier value to 0.4, as a backlight is typically the least intense of all lights in a scene.
Activate the Camera viewport, then click Quick Render.

The brighter light, which you created first, is known as the key light. The dimmer light, which you added next, is known as the fill light. For most subjects, you want to have a single key light only, but you can add additional fill lights to illuminate the background or other hard-to-see places to simulate global illumination. You can also vary the position of the key light, to make the image clearer or more dramatic. Finally, you added a backlight to separate your character from the background.

Experiment:

The best way to understand how an individual light is affecting your scene is to turn off all other lights that are present. Try this:

Select the Main light (the first light you created) and on the Modify panel, turn the light off.
Also turn off the Fill light (the second light you created).
With the Camera view current, click Quick Render.

You can now see the individual effect on the back light in the scene.
Experiment by turning the three lights you created on and off, in different combinations. When you are done, turn all three lights back on before saving your file.

The effects of the individual lights on Pito: the Main light (Left), Fill Light (Center) and Back light (Right).

Save your work:

Save the scene as pito_lit.max.
NoteThe three-point light version of the scene is in pito_head_shot_final.max .

Summary

If you are lighting a single subject such as a head, use a single key light and one or more fill lights. The key light is the brightest; the fill lights have a lower intensity.

You can get different effects by changing the angle of the light. Avoid lighting a subject directly from the front.

Managing Multiple Lights