Lighting 3D Characters for Storytelling

[@cgboost]

In this video Martin Klekner shares practical workflows to make your 3d character lighting more cinematic and help you in your storytelling needs. ⇨ Project files and Blender 2.8 Shortcut PDF (email required): cgboost.com/resources/ ⇨ Martin's KZbin Channel: kzbin.info CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro 02:21 - Lighting Scenario 1: Beauty lighting 04:00 - High-key / Low-key lighting 05:06 - Light types (Key, Fill, Back, Rim...) 06:02 - Light Quality - Soft Lighting 08:54 - Lighting Scenario 2: Dramatic 08:56 - Light Ratio - Low / High Light Ratio 12:01 - Short (Reverse) / Broad Lighting 12:23 - Paramount Lighting 12:46 - Loop Lighting 13:52 - Motivated Lighting 16:40 - Lighting Scenario 3: Mysterious 17:28 - Hair Light 19:23 - Split Lighting, Rembrandt Lighting 21:21 - Lighting Scenario 4: Evil 25:03 - Lighting Scenario 5: Dynamic 27:27 - Checkerboard Lighting 28:35 - Lighting Scenario 6: Mystical 33:05 - Outro

[@scottlee38]

Basically one of those Gnomon Workshop tutorials, only free instead of $100. Good work!

[@AZmaybe9]

I didn't realize it was possible to get almost turned on by how much knowledge I picked up from this video playlist

[@Masha_B]

Great work! I love these videos. Lighting and composition are often underestimated topics in tutorials about 3D.

[@MartinKlekner]

Thanks Masha!

[@techies_gaming8091]

hi, I want to ask something. do you know a book that learns all about lighting in animation? I need that for my last essay college for Bibliography/references please help thanks

[@causeitso]

I'm in a different line of work now but I made my first render in 2001 and continued till 2005, I played around with a lot of software and many many renders and I remember that placing area lights and volumetric effects were a pain because I had to hit render constantly. Your view port on the other hand looks production ready! Which is amazing. So as you said 5 seconds of appreciation for what technology is able to do now.

[@theweepingmopper3928]

I think this is an excellent lighting tutorial. Thank you so much, Martin, for taking the time and the effort to make this. It was one of the best spent 35 minutes on the Tube.

[@MartinKlekner]

So glad to hear that!

[@blenderrender9222]

One of the greatest lighting tutorials I ever seen... Thanks a lot!

[@Studios2u]

Its nice spending time with you, Su!!! ;)

[@o.s_arts]

Martin is doing great job... I might say that the Best tut. on lighting so far... Just keep them coming.. Specially based on (Character/Stylized animation) all kind of gud stuff 😊

[@EvanMapleMaggot]

This video is amazing. I spend 12 hours today at my new animation and was so upset how it looks like until found your video. Now im going to sleep with hope to finish project tomorrow cause of new knowledges. It makes life great. Thank you

[@simonk.2969]

good lighting immensely improves digital art...Thanks for this tutorial... Can you do large scenes lighting tutorial with animation in mind

[@nikhilnamdev4584]

Thank you for this video,its really help me for proper ligting, make more videos like this

[@WesleySales1]

I love theses videos and theory behind Martin! Help a lot! Please, keep them coming 😃🙏

[@millerrobayo4004]

Martin, good tutorial. Thanks for explaining some of your techniques.

[@user-tl7fu3kw3w]

So much valuable information!! Thank you!

[@alexandreancel6423]

Countless great tips in this video, thank you really much !

[@Visualbugtv]

great! lighting is one of the things we need more practice to improve! love the video! AND waiting for Juan Hernández's character creation tutorial! ups! just an idea jejeje

[@geocherk]

Awesome example of Hair light!)))

[@blue-R39]

your content is gold.

[@RenderRides]

Great video! Really nicely explained. Watching it right now, and I already expect to learn a lot from it!

[@luxor9339]

Now I'm still wondering why I can watch this video for free, thanks a lot.

[@elliotfrahs5997]

One of the most well-thought-out and put-together teaching videos I've seen. This took a lot of effort - thank you!

[@mankomal3]

OMG this helped me so much! Best lighting tutorial ever!!

[@mordecai1484]

I love Eeve so much that I often think about it when I go to bed. PS. thank you!

[@grayjackgaming1746]

17:34 I love lowkey humor like this

[@juancarlospaduavalentin4558]

You are say, Beautiful.

[@namtong577]

So useful, thanks!

[@hossamketfi9892]

Thank you

[@fhccardoso9487]

Hi CG Boost! A character sculpting training in Blender by Juan Hernandez would be very very awesome! His work is really great!

[@calebbrazeau4597]

thank you.

[@AurelieCouble]

Incredible ! It was so useful and inspiring ! Kind of make me want to switch to Blender as well haha. I hope there will be more tutorials like this one, thanks !

[@Gatz3D]

Fantastic video!! Thanks for sharing all this info! Very informative! 👍👍

[@MartinKlekner]

Thanks for watching ;-)

[@Dimitar_Genov]

Superb content brother. Keep up your good work!

[@REDPanti]

Great Tips 👍

[@deadpoolbr0]

such a gem!

[@izzaauliyairabby5291]

Amazing tips

[@randomamerican6320]

Wonderful content and the wisdom is amazing!

[@100Peterll]

21:34 damn that was really twisted...

[@AngelAgudoGuerrero]

Great Compendium!

[@dagimdebrework9318]

thanks you bro you are super helpful

[@Israel2099]

Amazing stuff!

[@honeynaim9115]

Outstanding Video, amazing job, thanks a ton.

[@caiwei6895]

thank you so much, u help us a lot 😆😆

[@AeroBiling]

Hi Martin, thanks for awesome video again! And are you gonna share the video of livestream which was a few days ago? I could not watch until the end, but it interesting for me to see final. Hope you do, thanks :D

[@MartinKlekner]

Hey Shyngyskhan, livestream recordings are available for my Patrons over here: www.patreon.com/MartinKlekner :-)

[@I_am_Spartacus]

Loved this and definitely something I really needed to watch! I love videos like this where I can instantly apply what I learn to my projects. Could you do a video on how to determine what size I should create my models for different real world projects please? @Martin Klekner I can't find any info on the web about this? Thanks!

[@Osarunga]

Amazing! Thank you so much

[@mukeshsingh-fs1sr]

Nice video. carry on to teach us always.

[@rakeshscientist]

I SUBSCRIBED your channel through Jared Owens

[@SugarLightStudios]

Next video should be definitely about dynamic poses

[@ahmadsunusi3162]

Good, wish to see tutorial lighting an environment using HDR image and why do you use spot lamp instead of sun lamp to light the from out site, what is the difference?

[@MartinKlekner]

This tutorial was made in Eevee and it doesnt really do HDRi lighting that good, so instead I used Spot Lights. I used those instead of Sun lamps because a) they are more performance friendly b) they allow me a precise control over the direction and areas illuminated, as opposed to sun lamps

[@tyoo9502]

Great tutorial! The project works fine in Eevee, but it looks like it runs out of memory when rendering with Cycles. Not sure why that is.

[@middlebenchcreations3876]

Its really cool... can do lighting tutorial for moving characters

[@monkeyjack929]

Hello! Thanks a lot for this tutorial! I just can't figure out where did you plug the dust texture @8:27 !? Is it plugged to a plane? Thanks a lot once again! /cheers

[@MartinKlekner]

Oh yes, if you use the Import Images as Planes addon and then Import - Images as Planes, it will do it almost automatically. Then, you just have to plug the picture into Alpha channel In Shader Editor. If you download the Project Files to this tutorial, you can see exactly how I plugged it in :-)

[@happysmash27]

Eh, Cycles can do real-time previews too. It's a bit noisy and takes a few seconds to be completely understandable sometimes, but I have no trouble lighting my scenes this way at all.

[@andreirafael5582]

is there a course for the character creation? its exactly what am i looking for omg

[@cgboost]

Well, there might be one in the future 😉

[@ImakIlaha]

top!!!

[@rohitkhanvilkr1636]

Hi Su.

[@MartinKlekner]

你好! - Su, probably

[@pelakalion]

This video tutorial it's not well paid enough. Thanks :)

[@max_nadolny]

Great tutorial. But the project renders too slow. About 15 mins on 1080 ti. Probably the texture size is too high and 12 GB of VRAM is not enough.

[@AllExistence]

Emission doesn't light the scene in eevee.

[@MartinKlekner]

Thanks for the note, didn't realize that! :)

[@nievous]

@@MartinKlekner Unless you're using an irrandiance volume of course!

[@moonthurst]

realy nice tuts for still images... or are they ?! can we use this technic for lighting animations ? I mean with this method, wouldn't the charachter get out of its light setup!? (lets say in a fight scene) What then ?

[@cgboost]

Hi! You can apply this principles in animations too, just be careful so that your light is consistant and looks natural. Notice that this tutorial referenced lots of light setups used in movies sets. You can deal with lightning in the same way as in movie sets - they also deal with making every shot with great lightning but keeping everything unified so that it makes sense. - Juan

[@gameranch1995]

Hey everyone, I'm a 2D character artist with a deep obsession with video games and computer graphics. However I was never into much programming and coding but more attracted to the creative and art sides of the projects like how shadows are implemented, light sources. Like I want to just know how it works without getting into the detail of the maths involved. I haven't been able to find simpler explainations of this. I have a question about how facial shadows are working in Forbidden West as the character of Aloy has poor facial deep facial shadows being casted on Aloy's face on the PS5 version in the prologue but get very good as we get into the game like advertised in the State of Play 21. Can you please help me with a little a bit of information?

[@cgboost]

With game engines and real-time render engines, a lot depends on how the shadows are being created. In a lot of cases, the shadows can be built into the textures which is often the case with things like shadows in nostrils and mouth of characters because they are very small spaces and to get that level of accuracy in the shadows, it would take a lot more processing time. If the shadows are being calculated "on the fly" then you'll often find that small spaces like that don't have very convincing shadows unless the game / scene has a higher level of shadow detail. They might turn the detail up or down depending on what the surrounding environment is like. It's also possible with newer real-time render engines that there's a more dynamic way of defining detail. For example, in conversations, the shadow detail in the background doesn't need to be as high but you want the detail to be high on the characters. Really it comes down to how the game is built and what resources the scene in question requires. ~ Daniel

[@robob3ar]

Nice, where’s the dust tutorial? You add it to the world shader?

[@MartinKlekner]

You can learn how to add the atmosphere in this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWGapmeJbd19jtU

[@simonvacek4821]

hello! Soo I'm thinking about buying your paid beginner course, and I wanted to ask you if it is still useful, basically if the modelling shortcuts, techniques etc. have changed. Im young and very new to blender (so far I'm loving it), if you think your course isn't the right thing for me, what would you recommend? thank you

[@MartinKlekner]

Hello, if you mean CGBoost Blender Launch Pad, definitely, it will teach you all you need to start in Blender :)

[@devadethanmp5486]

@Martin Klekner can i use this character for my nft project 👀

[@cgboost]

Answered on the academy site. Using someone else's character without proper permission and rights, especially for gaining profit, is nor nice neither legal. BTW character is created by Juan Hernandez. ~Egon

[@yoangelle2865]

Can you put the film Megalomania on your site for download so that I can see this film there!

[@sachinmane8297]

hi, Su

[@pravinrenders]

I just noticed you look like the boltan from game of thrones.

[@techies_gaming8091]

where I can get a book that teaches me about lighting in blender?? I need that for reference my last exam

[@guilhermeoliveira1673]

(sinister tone)

[@kingkelvinvalentine9756]

PLEASE SEND ME THE 3D models OF THE SHAOLIN MONK CHARACTER RIG

[@FortitudeStudio]

I don't got the "specular" setting in my lights :/

[@FortitudeStudio]

Oh I see, it's because Eevee has it but not Cycles!

[@sribalramdas6158]

That first example of hair light...😂😂😂

[@voidlight6006]

wait wtf how did you do the dust texture

[@MindfulMusingsTome]

@8:40 Where does he add the image/video texture for particles? To a plane?

[@MartinKlekner]

Yes it is just a plane :)

[@max_nadolny]

How did you pose the monk? There is no armature on it.

[@MartinKlekner]

We did have armature on it, but removed it for the shared files, the author didnt want to share the complete rig, Im sure you understand :-)

[@max_nadolny]

@@MartinKlekner I see. Thank you. 8k textures is too much for my 1080 ti. Render time in eevee is about 3 hours.

[@shrysm]

You should have more subs than blender guru....no offense

[@blendershots]

Brother whats your computer specs?

[@martinhepp555]

He kinda looks like soker from avatar the last airbender

[@canidu]

Hi Martin where do I find the texture file for this tutorial found the blender files but no texture files thanks

[@MartinKlekner]

Hello, if you subscribe to the Blender Beginners course at CGBoost and go to the Resources lesson, you will be able to access Dropbox or Google Drive folder. In there, you navigate to Free Resources - Blender Tutorials - 2020_05_22_lighting_3d_characters folder. There you will find a .zip file with the textures...

[@lornemalvoo]

How many hour take for doing this. And another question: Can i do this with python code stuff.

[@ArtPomelo]

What are you asking for? There is no need to use python here..

[@LudovicPiquet01]

Hello I can't find the sources for this tuto via the link .

[@MartinKlekner]

Hello if you go to CGBoost.com/Resources and subscribe to the course, you can then open the Download all Blender Resources & Blender 2.8 Hotkey Sheet PDF lesson and there, you get access to Google Drive or Dropbox. They are situated in the Free Resources-blender tutorials-2020_05_22_lighting_3D_characters_for_storytelling folder... Hope it helps!

[@englishsouth820]

name of the app please

[@cgboost]

If you man the 3D software, it is Blender. Free to download here: www.blender.org/download/

[@Illasera]

Learn this well, But, After practice the given GUIDELINES, I would actually try to do the opposite of everything said here... The majority does the same thing, use the same lighting setup, the same animation style, the same composition tricks, The same color gamut. Knight to E5 [Automated moves without thinking]. My recommendation to the good folks here : Try to deviate from the rules given. Another recommendation is to watch old films that were more experimental, Even black and white films, they focused more on mastering lighting better than today, without colors to distract. (I am not implying to have noir films, nor modern art which is disgusting on its own, But a way to train your mind for experimenting, Folks, Understand, Everyone follow the same guidelines which results in the same product visually).

[@osiris5449]

bro, when did Su go cross eyed? lol