Lighting in blender


title image
finished lighting result

What is Lighting?

Lighting is a very important topic in rendering, standing equal to modelling, materials and textures. The most accurately modelled and textured scene will yield poor results without a proper lighting scheme, while a simple model can become very realistic if skilfully lit.


Why would you use it? 

People use lighting in order to make their object more realistic and easier to see. It also makes your object better looking in general.

Different types of lighting:

Point:

1. In order to do this you must press shift + A and select lamp then select point then place this light somewhere on your scene
table with a point lamp
point lamp


Sun:

1. Repeat the same process that you did for point but this time select sun, you should try place this light up high and at an angle to your object in order to get a good effect

table with a sun lamp
sun lamp


Spot:

1. Again, repeat the same process except select spot, you should place this above your object in order to get the desired effect. This light emits light in a cone like direction

table with a spot lamp
spot lamp


Hemi:

1. Same again, repeat the process and select hemi. This is a 180® directional light which emits light downwards

table with a hemi lamp
hemi lamp


Area:

1. Same steps again just select area instead. This is an upward light that emits light from the plane.



table with an area lamp
area lamp

How to use Lighting in Blender

1. Press F12 for camera perspective

camera perspective of human head
camera perspective

2. Then open up the world tab and tick ambient occlusion


world tab in blender
world tab


3. Turn ambient occlusion to full

full ambient occlusion
full ambient occlusion

4. Reduce ambient occlusion to 0.5

ambient occlusion 0.5
half ambient occlusion


5. Go to the Gather column in World tab

gather in blender
gather column
6.  Adjust samples to preferred amount of samples. This makes the picture more realistic but my recommendation is not to go over 10 as it may crash your computer


samples - human head
samples human head
sample at 10
gather sample 10
7. Press 7 for top view

top view of human head
top view

8. Then duplicate the lamp by pressing Shift + D and place lamps at the front, the back, and the side

3 point lamp of human head
3 point lamp


9.  Then adjust the energy on both duplicate lamps. To do this you have to go to the object data tab and adjust the energy settings
energy settings in blender
energy settings
10. Set the lamp behind the object to 0.8 and the one beside it to 0.5

closer view of energy settings
energy settings 2
11. Once this is done press F12 and that is the lighting of the object done.

finished image of lighting
finished lighting