Render question: getting light to fall from above

[Celloguy]

Hey everyone! I have built a modular building in Stud.io and I am trying to render it effectively within Stud.io. Because it's a modular building, the walls on each floor block the light rays, from conventional light angles.

I'm trying to find a setting for more top illumination, by changing the X and Y light angle settings, but just can't seem to find it! What's worse is it seemsto differ whether you use Piazza/bulding/dawn settings.

The official instructions are here:

Photoreal / Eyesight options – Studio Help Center (bricklink.com)

But when I enter 315 degrees in the X, to get more top light, it actually gets darker in piazza mode!

Please send help! :)

[SylvainLS]

Hi,

In the help page, the images about lighting angles are mostly for the Building and Mechanic light setups and depend on the light position setting (left/right-front/rear).  To be clear, they show that if you use Building or Mechanic left-front, then rotating 315° on the X axis places the main light on top.  If you use another position, the angles are different (couldn’t be so simple).  For instance, if you use a left-rear lighting, the lights are turned 270° (-90°) on Y relatively to left-front.  Also note that there’s multiple lights.  “Left-front” means that the main light is (approximately) behind the left shoulder of the photographer.

It works a bit differently for HDR lighting (Asteroid, Dawn, Plazza) because 0) it’s not individual lights, it’s a surrounding image, 1) there’s no left/right-front/rear setting, 2) there’s a bug where the HDR image follows the camera on the X axis (but not on the Y axis), so you need to compensate the camera’s X rotation until it’s fixed.

The simplest is to put a ball (41250 for instance) in Chrome Silver on top of your build, the HDR image (or lights) will be reflected on it.  And them make a small adjustment to see how the light moves before making bigger moves.  (Render with a Custom quality of 16 samples on a small image should be enough to check the lights.)

Edited May 21, 2023 by SylvainLS

[Celloguy]

Thanks so much, that is very useful! I'm glad that I wasn't crazy on the lights being a bit weird!