Three-point Lighting in 3DS MAX

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Three-point lighting is a very common lighting technique used in cinematography and photography. Three-point lighting is a very flexible technique and it can be used to illuminate the subject in an attractive way. Three-point lighting consists of three separate lights which can be used to control the lighting, shading and shadows of the subject:

Key light
Fill light
Back light / Rim light

Key light is the main light source, it illuminates the subject the most and it defines the overall lighting design of the scene. Key light casts the strongest shadows to the subject.

Fill light is less bright than key light and is used to illuminate the parts of the subject that cannot be reached by key light. Fill light is also used to soften the shadows of key light and to decrease the contrast of the subject's surface.

Back light is used to illuminate the edge of the subject from behind in order to separate the subject from its background. Back light can be very bright. Even if it's bright is doesn't compete with key light because it highlights only the edges of the subject. Back light is also known as rim light because it gives the subject a rim of light.

The idea of three-point lighting works also in 3D graphics but the practice has some differences compared to real cinematography. In this tutorial I discuss the three-point lighting setup in 3D Studio MAX.

Picture 1 is rendered with 3D Studio MAX's default lighting. In other words, it has been rendered before any light has been created. The default lighting of 3DS MAX works well while modelling the subject but is not a good solution in the rendering of the final image. There are at least two apparent problems in picture 1. Firstly, there are no shadows. And secondly, as you can see the left side of the face is left in darkness and merges with the background. Let's illuminate the face with three-point lighting setup in 3DS MAX.

Key Light

Key light represents the main light source. In real life the main light source usually shines from above, so let's place the key light above the face.

Create a Target Directional light, place it according to picture 2 and give the following parameters to it:
General Parameters
Shadows: On
Intensity/Color/Attenuation
Multiplier: 0.8
Directional Parameters
Hotspot/Beam: 0,5
Falloff/Field: 0,51
Shadow Map Params
Bias: 0.0
Size: 2048
Sample Range: 4.0

(The settings above are used with a real size person. If your model is of different size you must change Hotspot/Beam and Falloff/Field accordingly. With this setup the shadows are pretty sharp. Feel free to soften the shadows by increasing Sample Range.)

Render a test image. The lighting should be similar to picture 3.

Fill Light

Create an Omni light according to picture 4 and give the following parameters to it:
Intensity/Color/Attenuation
Multiplier: 0.25
Advanced Effects
Specular: Off

(The intensity of fill light is always much less than the intensity of key light. It's often a good idea to turn Specular off in fill light so that it affects the diffuse characteristic of the surface only.)

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3D Studio MAX default lighting

Picture 1. Using the default lighting (as in the picture above) in 3DS MAX is not the best option.

Key light placement in 3D Studio MAX

Picture 2. In this case the key light is placed so that it shines from the front and above of the character. Key light is the main light source of the scene.

The effect of key light in 3DS MAX

Picture 3. The picture above is rendered with key light only.

Fill light placement in 3D Studio MAX

Picture 4. Fill light is used to illuminate the part of the face that key light can't reach. The intensity of fill light is much less than the intensity of key light.