3dsmax
3D Environment Lighting is our new 84-page tutorial series, where over the course of the six chapters we will be detailing techniques on lighting an environment under a number of different conditions. Each chapter will cover a step-by-step guide to setting up lights, aimed at portraying the scene in a specific manner.

The various chapters will be tailored to specific software packages, and each will aim to show a comprehensive and effective way of lighting an interior of a ship that includes both natural and artificial light. These will include a sunny afternoon, sunset, moonlight, electric light, candlelight and finally a submerged submarine light. The schedule is as follows:

Chapter 01:
Sunny Afternoon In this chapter we take a look at how to set up “sunny afternoon” lighting for our 3D environment, using Mental Ray to render.

Chapter 02:
Twilight In this chapter we set up our lighting scene to make it resemble a moody sunset, again using Mental Ray to render.

Chapter 03:
Moonlight This time we create a typical moonlight setup for the ship cabin scene, using the Mental Ray renderer.

Chapter 04:
Electrical In this chapter we learn how to create an artificial lighting situation for our ship cabin scene, using 3ds Max and Mental Ray.

Chapter 05:
Candlelight This time we learn how to light the ship’s cabin with some candles. Only one candle will be visibile on the left; the other two will just light the scene and cast shadows, but will be out of view (one on the right and one in the back of the room).

Chapter 06:
Underwater In this last chapter we set up a nice underwater scene for the ship cabin. Just imagine it has sunk and is now laying on the ocean bed!

Environment Lighting Designed & Modelled by Richard Tilbury
Tutorial by Luciano Iurino