[SFM] Lighting Test Render

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sonic-lighting-jpg.9156

When learning to make renders in Source Filmmaker one aspect that can be considered the (if not, the most) difficult part of rendering is getting your lighting to look good. Just using one light in front of the character isn't enough and will look back so usually you'll have to resort to about 3-6 different lights to make your renders really stand out. This render of Sonic was a practice of my lighting skills by using a standard 4-light setup involving 1 fill light, 1 rim light and 2 key lights as well as volumentric lights in the background to add some more colour and visual flair.

By doing practices focusing on lighting from time-to-time can go a long way to improving future renders so the idea is by practicing these now, future renders of PERP will look more visually stunning and high quality.

I plan to update this thread with lighting render tests from time to time but I also encourage some people who are new to SFM to post their practice renders focusing on lighting here too :D
 

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all these sexy lightings only for your colors to postorize :(
im guessing this is JPG compression, but if this was a rendered export this might be useful to you or others, also, try exporting in PNG, as the JPG format does not support 16 bit color(this can help with banding!)

1 minute of photoshop repairs got me from
this:
f620102d.png

to this:
0b8d4abf.png


your lighting is extremely nice tho, can't wait to see more!
 
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I've looked into SFM and it will use 8bit colors for both PNG and JPG. the JPG format only supports upto 8 but PNG can support 16. If you want more freedom over your image quality you can export as a PFM, this is a format that supporst a color depth of 32bpc, it leaves you with much more freedom and picture quality. PFM is a format supported by photoshop, if you want i can send you a PM with a link to photoshop!

heres some more info about PFM https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=938272940
 
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@Sneaky Cheers! Would be much appreciated too if I could get the link in a PM. Would be great to create more renders with much more higher quality colours to help them really stand out :D
 
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