KeyShot Forum

Technical discussions => Lighting => Topic started by: evanstuart on July 09, 2019, 01:29:13 PM

Title: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: evanstuart on July 09, 2019, 01:29:13 PM
Hey All,

Probably missing a past thread on this already (or maybe not), but, I'm trying to figure out how best to set up a scene to achieve similar results to the shots below. My main objectives are :

- Achieve an almost uniformly well-lit background (no harsh light blowouts on the product)
- Cast a simple one direction shadow

It looks like in all images, there is one main light (guessing the keylight) used to create the shadows. I've tried setting up a scene using a large area light, and used pins to illuminate the rest of the HDRI to provide a good balance of even lighting but am experiencing awful overexposed images.

Would anyone be willing to show (screenshot settings of HDRI or layout of scene) to help create the style of images seen below?

Thanks to any help given!



Title: Re: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: nicordf on July 12, 2019, 07:26:38 AM
Hi Evan,


Have you tried changing the background to color and selecting a let's say 90% white bg?


That way you'll still have your ground shadows but against an "evenly lit" background.


That being said, render to a 32bit psd, include a clown pass and you'll have more control of the curves and objects in post.
Title: Re: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: RRIS on July 15, 2019, 04:24:48 AM
All the light pins in your HDRI will cast shadows, but it's all about how intense they are relative to each other.
If you have one pin that is much brighter than all the others combined, that will still give you a nice clear cast shadow whilst at the same time allowing you to use the other pins purely for reflection.
For example, you can have multiple pins (think big softboxes) for your reflections, with an intensity of 1.. and then have 1 very small radius pin with an intensity of 100 for your cast shadow (and since it's so small, it will probably not even show up in your reflections, leaving you pretty free where you actually place it).
Then experiment with your background color to create more or less contrasty reflections (white softboxes on a black background are more contrasting than having a gradient or white background).
Title: Re: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: evanstuart on July 24, 2019, 12:46:06 PM
Hey RRIS,

This is brilliant advice. Thanks a million for that. From both yours and Nicordf, I figured out exactly what I wanted. Delighted!

Thanks everyone!
Title: Re: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: RRIS on July 25, 2019, 12:11:10 AM
Quote from: evanstuart on July 24, 2019, 12:46:06 PM
Hey RRIS,

This is brilliant advice. Thanks a million for that. From both yours and Nicordf, I figured out exactly what I wanted. Delighted!

Thanks everyone!

Glad to hear that! :)
Title: Re: Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows
Post by: TiewBall on July 27, 2019, 02:06:47 AM
thank for your advice a lot.  :)