In the Portrait – Character Lighting Tutorial, artists discuss character portrait lighting to make the most of their 3D characters.

Digital artists would love to light their digital portraits just like professional photographers do in real life. Let’s learn how to translate real-world photography lighting into 3D rendering environments.

This is a community-based tutorial where, in terms of portrait character renders, tips on portrait lighting and recommended portrait lighting resources are shared.

A bonus tutorial is included for how to create the four classic lighting setups for portraits in DAZ Studio (by Esha) meant for Iray.

Discussions included:

Types of classic portrait lighting setups

Butterfly/Loop/Rembrandt/Split lighting

Tips on lighting skin for older characters Catchlights

Using colored lighting for portraits

Using reflectors

Re-creating a real-world photography studio for portraits

Side lighting for dramatics

Recommended portrait lighting resources for DAZ Studio artists Three-point lighting

Using lights one at a time

The Portrait – Character Lighting Tutorial is hosted by Digital Art Live.

What’s Included and Features

• This Bundle Includes:
  • Portrait – Character Lighting Tutorial: (.MP4)
  • Main tutorial video running time : 1 hour 30 minutes
  • Bonus tutorial video running time : 37 minutes
    • Main Tutorial time index:
      • 00:00 Introduction
      • 00:03 Four classic portrait lighting types
      • 00:11 Peter von Stackelberg using stock DAZ spotlights and ghost lights
      • 00:13 Character lit with a single light
      • 00:14 Tips on lighting middle aged skin
      • 00:16 Portrait background hinting at story context.
      • 00:20 Daniel Wright realistic portraits
      • 00:21 About catchlights
      • 00:23 Using blue lighting
      • 00:24 Fain – cyberpunk portrait with emissive body art.
      • 00:28 Fantasy portrait – unflattering light for antagonist.
      • 00:32 Karen Williams- Low level light for portraits
      • 00:38 Lighting a male figure
      • 00:40 Gobo lighting on a figure
      • 00:43 Heavy shadowing on a character creating drama
      • 00:44 Leyla Munteanu – fashion lighting set
      • 00:52 Rotate the character rather than the lights and camera.
      • 00:55 Lighting bringing out texturing
      • 00:56 Squint at an image to figure out the highlights
      • 00:58 Discussion on avoiding distractions by lighting eg double shadows.
      • 01:02 Trevor Hancock – Boquet lighting for characters
      • 01:10 Easy portrait lights product : soft lighting
      • 01:13 Various characters lit by Bokeh studio HDR lighting.
      • 01:14 Using Bokeh studio
      • 01:16 Slater Lewis – Three point lighting
      • 01:18 Add lights one at a time to test and adjust
      • 01:19 Render using one light at a time and layer the renders.
      • 01:22 Reflectors
      • 01:28 Ian Franklin – Pin up Box Bundle – Rembrandt lighting example
      • 01:30 Kathleen Sibo shares two pieces of artwork.

Compatible Software:

Daz Studio 4.15

Install Types:

DazCentral, Daz Connect, DIM, Manual Install