3 Point Lighitng

hi frnds!
here i want to introdude you all to the most generic and helping form of lighting. this is most poerful tool of lighitng anything known till now.
and for starters it a must to learn :



Three lights: the Key Light, Fill Light, and Rim Light (also called Back Light), are adjusted to achieve the classic Hollywood lighting scheme called three-point lighting.
This GIF Animation shows the role of the 3 lights.
Here's how to set them up in your 3D scenes:

1. Start in Darkness. Make sure there are no default lights, and there's no global ambience. When you add your first light, there should be no other light in the scene.
2. Add your Key Light. The Key Light creates the subject's main illumination, and defines the most visible lighting and shadows. Your Key Light represents the dominant light source, such as the sun, a window, or ceiling light - although the Key does not have to be positioned exactly at this source.
Create a spot light to serve as the Key. From the top view, offset the Key Light 15 to 45 degrees to the side (to the left or right) of the camera. From a side view, raise the Key Light above the camera, so that it hits your subject from about 15 to 45 degrees higher than the camera angle.
The key light is brighter than any other light illuminating the front of the subject, is the main shadow-caster in your scene, and casts the darkest shadows. Specular highlights are triggered by the Key Light.
NOTE: Be sure to stop and do test-renders here. Your "one light" scene (with just the key light) should have a nice balance and contrast between light and dark, and shading that uses all of the grays in between. Your "one light" should look almost like the final rendering, except that the shadows are pitch black and it has very harsh
3. Add your Fill Light(s). The Fill Light softens and extends the illumination provided by the key light, and makes more of the subject visible. Fill Light can simulate light from the sky (other than the sun), secondary light sources such as table lamps, or reflected and bounced light in your scene. With several functions for Fill Lights, you may add several of them to a scene. Spot lights are the most useful, but point lights may be used.
From the top view, a Fill Light should come from a generally opposite angle than the Key - if the Key is on the left, the Fill should be on the right - but don't make all of your lighting 100% symmetrical! The Fill can be raised to the subject's height, but should be lower than the Key.
At most, Fill Lights can be about half as bright as your Key (a Key-to-Fill ratio of 2:1). For more shadowy environments, use only 1/8th the Key's brightness (a Key-to-Fill ratio of 8:1). If multiple Fills overlap, their sum still shouldn't compete with the Key.
Shadows from a Fill Light are optional, and often skipped. To simulate reflected light, tint the Fill color to match colors from the environment. Fill Lights are sometimes set to be Diffuse-only (set not to cast specular highlights.)
4. Add Rim Light. The Rim Light (also called Back Light) creates a bright line around the edge of the object, to help visually separate the object from the background.
From the top view, add a spot light, and position it behind your subject, opposite from the camera. From the right view, position the Back Light above your subject.
Adjust the Rim Light until it gives you a clear, bright outline that highlights the top or side edge for your subject. Rim Lights can be as bright as necessary to achieve the glints you want around the hair or sides of your subject. A Rim Light usually needs to cast shadows. Often you will need to use light linking to link rim lights only with the main subject being lit, so that it creates a rim of light around the top or side of your subject, without affecting the background:

That's it. Three-Point Lighting can be a simple starting-point for lighting just about any subject. By walking through it, this tutorial introduced 3 of the main visual functions served by lights in your 3D scenes: Key Light, Fill Light, and Rim Light. In a more complex scene, there are other types of lights used as well: Practical Lights, Bounce Lights, Kickers, and Specular Lights, which serve other visual functions
The vocabulary of describing lights by their visual function is something you can apply in any scene. However, even when you use Key, Fill, and Rim lights, don't think of three-point lighting as an excuse to light by formula, or to make every scene look the same. You should begin each scene by looking at what is motivated, by which kinds of light would really be in that particular scene. There is usually some direction from which the light is brightest, and that is where the Key light should come from. If the object is back-lit, then there may be a rim, in other cases there isn't one. It is observing the actual colors, tones, contrast, and direction of real light that actually informs how to create believable scenes in 3D.
Hopefully beginning artists won't mistake three point lighting for any kind of a formula or recipe. If you are trying to create believable lighting that fits with each unique situation, there's no shortcut to skip studying the motivations and qualities of real lights that would occur in a particular scene.

hi all students,

i was planning to write this since many months but due to lack of time i was not able to write this.

here based upon my experience of production and exp of my struggling time (offcourse) i am giving some important tips on how to make your demoreels look more attractive and how to grab the job in first 20 secs of your demoreel.

For first-timers putting together a reel, following are some helpful guidelines

1) An application that requires a demo reel submission has 5 parts:
a) the cover letter

b) the resume

c) the demo reel

d) the demo reel breakdown

The cover letter can (and should) be brief. The resume should tell us where you've worked, what you did when you worked, what kind of coursework you've had, and what tools, languages, and systems you can use. The demo reel breakdown is really essential

2) Your reel should be no more than 4 minutes. Just like a resume is no more than 2 pages unless you've been CEO or a senator.

If you have a lot of great material...do a 4 minute version, and then refer to longer pieces on a DVD afterwards if you get that far into the process. "For the entire short see the additional materials section...blah blah blah yakity shmakity."
Don't do a "collage" of your work, with interleaved random clips from all your different work. No, no, no. No one will be able to figure out what's going on. DO give each piece the time it deserves, no more nor less, and just show it once. Keep It Simple and Short (KISS) as we say that!!!

3) Don't show un-approved work. Don't show work from other studios if it has not been approved or no one will look at the demo reel.

4) Nobody cares about music/soundtrack. Pepl generally turn off the sound. But sometimes they listen to it and get really annoyed if they don't like your taste in music. Keep it basic or leave it off.

5) Put your best work first. Lead TDs often have 10 - 20 reels to go through. They might watch the first minute, see if anything intrigues them. If so, they'll watch the other 2 minutes. If not, move on. Show your best, most impressive work first -- presumably the work you are specifically applying for. Make it clear on your demo reel, cover letter, and resume what type of position you're applying for. Don't try to change your demo reel because our website says we only need, say, lighting artists now, either. Say what you're good at and make your reel demonstrate that.

6) Demo Reel Breakdown (DRB). They want to know what you did on this reel. Here's a shot of a Luxo lamp jumping over a ball. Did you model the lamp? Do the animation? Shade it? Light it? Render it? Write the story? Executive-produce it? The DRB should tell us what we're looking at, what YOU did on it, and what tools you used.
"Sleeping ball: (June 2003) Group project; I shaded the plastic sphere in Slim/Renderman" is a good entry.
"Group project; project used Maya, Slim, Renderman, and Perl" is less useful.
Put this on the frame before the sequence and again in the DRB they can refer to. they often fall behind in reading your DRB; help them keep track of what you're showing. If you have two dozen entries, number the DRB and put numbers on the reel, too - they may not know the difference between your "Sleeping ball" animation and the opus you call "Lazy Sphere".

7) Include a title card at the beginning and end with your name, address, phone, and email.

Including the position you're looking for is not a bad idea, either. The opening one doesn't need to be on too long, but the end one should last for a while. Don't make people desperately pause to get your email address.

8) Show work that proves that you know what you did. If you've done a sequence, show it at several stages of production. eg If you've done shading, show the basic color pass, the procedural shading, the painting, and a lit version.

and most importantly,

never just burn your demoreel write your name with a cd marker on the cd and post it to the studio.

always try to design a cd label, make a decent cover which can have images of what is the work inside, and your details like your email id and phone number on one corner.

put it in a good cd cover and then post. this reflects how much creative you are and how much you are interested in doing your work. also it shows your efforts in making the reel.

this really helps many times as when the lead TDs are very busy they see the cover and can call you without watching your reel. or still they want to see the demo first with priority rahter watching any other pepl's reel.

hai an emerging lighting artist

hai all this is yashovid tiwari from MAAC indore. i am a lightng artist in 3ds max. and now a days am in search of job
You all can watch my lighting showreel in youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyOi69swZbY
so digg it....