Part 3c: Light Dome PRO facing extreme situations

The LDP has some really cool features, that can make a huge impact - the way it illuminates your scene. Until now, we haven´t been adjusting the Sky Dome itself, but this can be done - and in some style too!

Before we start, let´s understand how the dome works. All the lights in the dome target the Sky Target. Meaning - if you move the target - all the Sky Lights angles will be altered.

Why is this feature so important?

Image 1

The red dots represent a single Sky Light and the Sky Target. What´s important here is the ANGLE - not the position. Moving the Sky Dome Around in your scene will NOT affect the light.

LDP uses Distant Lights - and therefore, this image illustrates the angle at which the lights targets this particular scene. Of course, there´s more lights in the LDP, but to better understand this - the image has been simplified.

The black ground and wall act like a prop with high walls. Notice the angle at which the light hits the prop. If you picture the green line all over this image - but at the same angle - you would see that parts of the prop would not get any light.

Image 2

Here, the Sky Target has been moved down a bit on the Y-axis. The value is below zero. Notice that the angle at which the light targets the prop has changed.

Very useful if you want to get more light to get in through the walls!

But what if we face the opposite situation?

Image 3

The target has been moved up, making the light target your scene at a more horizontal angle. Instead of just hitting the ground, you can actually make the light hit the inner wall of the structure using this simple adjustment.

Note that we didn´t move any lights & didn´t rotate anything. We just moved the Sky Target.

This is very useful for props like the Trinitry Atrium from Red House Studios. Note that moving the target too much - would concentrate the light - making it very bright. In this render - the Sky Target was placed at Y Translate -500 - to compensate for the high walls.

Let´s see some proof!

First, here´s a Cloudy Preset render - straight out of the box. No adjustments. For this training, we´ll remove the Ambient Lights - to better see what the Sky Lights are doing.

With the Ambient Lights gone the image gets darker in the shadows - and reveals the limitations of the Sky Lights.

Here, the Sky Target was moved up in the scene, to make some of the Sky Dome Lights target the scene at a more horizontal angle.

When adjusting the Sky Target, switch to wireframe preview and zoom out so that you can see all the lights of the Sky Dome. This way, you can see where every light will go.

This render is without the Ambient Light, and yet we can see more details inside the structure.

Also note, that when focusing the lighs like this - you end up illuminating the whole prop at a different angle. Therefore, the outer walls of this structure look brighter than as if with the default Sky Target position.

This is something you would need to decide from case to case - and target the lights at an angle most suited for your render.

So what else is there?

To wrap this up - there´s one more extremely cool thing to do... We talked about NOT moving the Sky Dome - right? Well, we didn´t mention moving AND rotating it at the same time!

You can move the Sky object, resize it, rotate it and use it as a huge light rig. This way - every single light of the Sky Dome will project light in a similar direction - making full use of all the lights.

Now, in this case - instead of letting 70% of the lights do nothing - but get stuck behind the prop - you can make them all aligned to produce some really sunning shadows...

Maybe not a realistic look, but the shadows are remarcable...

Note, that despite moving & rotating the Sky object, the LDP is still intended to be used outdoors only.

Don´t forget to bring down the intensity - as every single light will hit your scene from the same direction. Approx 25-50% should be fine!

Are we having FUN yet? ;)