10 Tips for better lighting in Cinema 4D

June 29, 2015

Helloluxx has created a very nice tutorial that breaks down the basics of lighting and how you can use that knowledge to light your C4D scenes correctly. Topics covered include which type of light to use, light position & direction, global illumination and more. Plus it's well illustrated with lots of examples. Read the tutorial here.

Here is an excerpt:

A common lighting technique is three point lighting, this uses a main light (key) for the primary illumination, a fill light to illuminate the darker areas, often finished of with the third light, a rim of light from behind to lift the subject away from the background. There are many ways to light a scene or character and three point lighting is fairly basic, but it is still a good technique to master as it can be a good starting point for many shots.
The key / fill ratio is the balance between the intensity of the various lights dictating the overall contrast. If the key light is bright and fill lights are dull, the result is high contrast dramatic lighting such as the full sun of midday. If the illumination of all lights is more or less the same, the result is the opposite and the scene will look flatter, more like an overcast cloudy day.

A good trick is to add a spill light to your scene, this is a light positioned similarly to your key light, however the spill should be much softer and illuminate a wider area, the combo of key and spill creates a more natural look than key light alone.
In this example there are only two lights, a key and a fill light, from left to right, the key becomes brighter and the fill becomes darker showing the effect this has on the scene contrast.