Match your favorite lighting example

Contests and Challenges
Kent Trammell

If you're like me, as you scour the internet for inspirational 3D art, you run into some amazing CG lighting setups. You know, the ones that make you want to be better! Well why should we let them have all the fun? Why can't we give it a go?

Therefore, the challenge here is to select one of your favorite lighting examples and do your best to match it in Blender. If you don't keep a collection of your favorites, feel free to use mine. Analyze light colors, number of lights, position, etc and recreate. Use either lamps or HDRi's or both - whatever you need to get the result.

Once you select your favorite, open up one of your models (or download this posed Baker model), do your best to match the lighting and materials, and post it here. Here's my attempts:

Original by Julien Kaspar

Source render by Bruno Ortolland

Image Credit: "Lüfor"by Alexandre Aroul

Image Credit: "Super Mario" by Mark Henriksen

Image Credit: "Sci Fi Pilot" by binqi chen

Image Credit: "Female sculpting session 01" by Daniel Crossland

Image Credit: "Tribal Frog" by Paul Braddock

Image Credit: "Danbo in Autumn" by tomatoes

Image Credit: "The Mad Professor's Ride" by Ruairidh MacNeill

  • Kless Gyzen(doncliche) replied

    This was an older model I had already completed hope you all still like it.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    I love it ccodywinch! I've always loved that example as well as your recreation! While the colors might not be 100% perfect, they're pretty close. And most importantly, the light is 👌  - Great job.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Nice job aaddysonh! I can definitely see the lighting similarity. And cool underwater scene as well 👍

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Wow, you're serious about matching this one doncliche ! The fog looks a little heavier in the goal to me, but my is it close. Did you render volumetrics or do the fog with zdepth?

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Is your username Don Cliché? because if that's how it's written, it's really funny 😂

    I like the result better than the goal. The cliff has more details, the silhouette has a more natural pose, it has some old photograph filter noise that looks cool. I have the same question, was that achieved using volumetric, Zdepth pass or just paining with Photoshop?

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Here's #4 from me. It'll be the focus of my stream today! The example is from a CGC member and it's proven to be the most difficult to recreate yet:

  • Kless Gyzen(doncliche) replied

    Thank you both very much :) and yes I used volumetrics for the fog but I think I added a little at the bottom in krita, I cant remember.

  • Grady Pruitt(gradyp) replied

    Just got done watching the video, and this looks like a very interesting and helpful exercise. Just might have to give it a go soon :D  

    @theluthier , with the CTRL-T thing, you can use it pretty much anywhere that would need vector coordinates... Anything with a color slot, it will even add in an image node. I think if it takes a color input, it will add an image node, and anything else, it will work backward to the Texture Coordinates.

    I keep missing the live ones, so I'm always watching the replays... and forgetting I'm watching a replay and want to make a comment -- only I can't because it's a replay :D

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Awesome fourth one Kent, I've loved that render in particular because of its simplicity. There is no super complex modeling or mega texturing and shading, just the pure raw power of lighting, compositing and composition. 

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Haha well thank you for filling me in further about CTRL + T with Node Wrangler! I probably only use a fraction of the addon's potential.

    Definitely give this exercise a try! It's been a lot of fun.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Just found this artist on ArtStation. Pretty awesome examples of effective lighting 😍

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Oh man there must be so many hours upon hours of sculpting there... but when I think about it, most people I know have a greater total of accumulated hours of watching series on Netflix or television. 

    Lighting is great, those god rays look cool and the poses and camera angles make everything look even cooler. 

    You know, I have deep respect for interior lighting, I think it is really hard and much more technical and Cycles still has ways to go compared to other render engines out there, but I hate the fact that a well lit interior really can't be showcased, it doesn't shine on its own as much as when you light a single model.   

  • Kent Trammell replied

    In the spirit of yesterday's live stream, here's my recreation of an impressive CG Cookie user's work:

    How about we get this thread going again with some new lighting matches??

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Blown out highlights, not the Filmic one.

    It is no surprise to me it hasn't gained your love, for most situations is not that necessary. I've only found it useful for interiors, because you have to really crank up the lights to get that interior lit. Without Filmic you used to get blown out areas pretty quickly. 

    I'll give this a try.

  • Mark Smith(me1958424) replied

    whether to turn it on and leave it or use where needed, isn't that the art part rather than the science?

  • Omar Domenech(dostovel) replied

    Well I guess. All the small choices you make during the whole process contributes to the end result. But also if you use the wrong tool for a set task, the end result is going to pay the consequences. 

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Yes. Art = freedom. Science = chains.

    Heh, 100 99% kidding! ☺️

  • Ronald Vermeij(indigowarrior9) replied

    Yes. Art = freedom. Science = chains.
    mmm.... Isn't  this-thing-precieved-as-Art being enabled by (the) Science?
    (of particles, photons, colors, lighting, reflection, refraction, shading).

  • Ronald Vermeij(indigowarrior9) replied


    Here's the lighting challenge i've set out for myself. A nice collection of little shiny things inside my windowsill that is facing the South. Throughout the day, Sunlight illuminates this little scene from many different angles, which keeps it a true joy to look at - at any given time-of-daylight.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    Umm....is one or more of these a render iindigowarrior9? If so, I cannot tell which one and that's awesome!