Anton, That is a neat technique ... thank you for sharing it. cheers, dr geep ;=] Dang! ... I wish I could do my tuts in only 2 pics. ;=]

This past October, I attended one of Lee Stranaham's Lightwave classes, and he showed us this same technique. I thought it was the slickest thing! How many times after you finish a render do you think "Dang, I wish I had made that back light a little bit stronger." Well, this technique allows you to do that. I think Anton follows a similar procedure as Lee ... set up a basic 3-point light set (Key, Fill, and Background) and render one image for each of the 3 lights. In the class, he suggested that you start in Photoshop with a solid black layer, and then layer each of the lighting renders on top of it. He also used screen mode to adjust the strength of each layer, though I think Opacity works similarly. Slick stuff Anton! Glad you brought it up. 8-)

typo - Stranaham should be Stranahan (sorry!)

I don't generally use alpha channels but you can do fun stuff with them for sure. Umm that's a big image there. :) Just an fyi. if you keep your image at 800 pixels wide or less, or crop it, it will prevent most people's browsers from resizing to need the horizontal scroll bar within Renderosity threads.

That's a real neat trick on the eye's Anton, thanks for sharing. 8)

neat stuff Anton! Thanks for sharing!

I combine multiple renders all the time (see my 'snowcloning' tutorial here and at DAZ, heh), but I've never really tried combining differently-lit scenes before. Getting the shadows right might be a handful, but I'll definitely have to try that out. Thanks a lot. ;) SnowS

I've done this a couple of times with neat results. Do you have a guide as to what lighting to choose for the various renders ? I noticed from the first image that one light is from top, and the other two from left and right basically. I like to use this technique and change some of the layers to 'overlay' / 'multiply' or 'screen'

Great info Anton. I recently started messing around with similar techniques.

You can use any lighting you want really. I just picked three different light sets at random. Rally just mix your favorite ones you have. It really is a simple process.

ohhh thanks!! also for the same pic...you can duplicate the layers make one softlight play with the opacity make another duplicate and make it......blue. not with a lot of saturation. put that {the blue layer between the normal and the soft light} and again play with the opacity, you can get some really nice effects with skin tone and depth that way. I cant wait to try your tut Anton!

Just wanted to add two links on that subject: http://www.3drender.com/light/compositing/index.html http://www.3drender.com/jbirn/ea/Ant.html

Oooh, great links! Thanks stewer! 8-)

Yep, been doin' that for awhile. Very, very effective. Sometimes you'll spend lots of time setting up complex lighting for a scene. At render time, you see that the shadows are just too strong in some areas, but that the brightness and positioning of the lighting is correct. Simple solution: Keep your render with the too-strong shadows, then do another with no shadows at all. Layer and adjust opacity to taste in Photoshop. Or, as Anton suggested, simply erase to the correct degree in the too-dark areas. I find this much quicker than going back and changing the shadows on multiple lights. If you've got less than 8 lights in a scene, fine. Fine-tune them by hand. Dean

Anton, your above tips are greatly appreciated. Thanks a bunch :o) Thomas

Anton, just wanted to say a big thanks for the tips...Knowledge, is the greatest gift one can offer another. -jay

NP. Always glad to share.

thanks

Great, great, great, tip, A. Thanks...

Bookmarking some of my old tutorials

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