aurick
10-24-02, 01:30 AM
As you may or may not know, paint programs (and most 3D apps) typically use 256 values for shades from black (0,0,0) to white (255,255,255).
Nature, however, doesn't know any such limitation. There are an infinite number of natural values between black and white -- a fact that is especially visible in places where a light source exists within the scene.
Thanks to a little known setting in ZBrush 1.5, you can now give your artwork that extra "punch" that mimics natural lighting. It's found in the form of the High Dynamic Range slider near the bottom of most material modifiers.
Here's a quick example, using a space background from Photoshop. I know, it's not ZBrush. I simply chose it because it had a VERY dynamic range in its lighting -- or would if it was an actual view in space, rather than a computer-generated image.
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035446850nhg.jpg
The image on the left is the image as it began. The other two used higher settings of the High Dynamic Range material slider.
Where HDR is different from simply brightening an image is that if you do that the black doesn't stay black. Instead, it brightens, too, becoming gray. With HDR values, black stays at a value of 0,0,0. However, the closer a color is to white, the more dramatically its effect is increased. As you can see, this creates truly powerful lighting effects without relying on any lights at all!
One thing that I have discovered is that it's usually best to turn the material's Ambient setting to 0. Otherwise, this is the unmodified Basic Material. It also doesn't take a very high setting to have a profound effect. In fact, the effect seems to increase exponentially the higher the HDR value gets.
And just to really show off the possibilities, I ran a test using a piece by one of the masters of natural light, Christian Lassen (www.lassenart.com (http://www.lassenart.com)) -- someone who's work I've always found very inspiring. The top half is the original painting. The bottom half uses the Basic Material with Ambient 0, HDR 2.5, a small amount of color bump and to simulate a bit of film graininess a noise value of 0.015 at a radius of 1. Notice how not only does the sky come even more vividly to life, but so does the translucency of the waves, the water glistening on the rocks in the foreground, and (thanks to the specularity and color bump) even the ocean spray.
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035448162brm.jpg
Use this technique any time you have a natural light source in your ZBrush scenes to really bring them to life!
Nature, however, doesn't know any such limitation. There are an infinite number of natural values between black and white -- a fact that is especially visible in places where a light source exists within the scene.
Thanks to a little known setting in ZBrush 1.5, you can now give your artwork that extra "punch" that mimics natural lighting. It's found in the form of the High Dynamic Range slider near the bottom of most material modifiers.
Here's a quick example, using a space background from Photoshop. I know, it's not ZBrush. I simply chose it because it had a VERY dynamic range in its lighting -- or would if it was an actual view in space, rather than a computer-generated image.
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035446850nhg.jpg
The image on the left is the image as it began. The other two used higher settings of the High Dynamic Range material slider.
Where HDR is different from simply brightening an image is that if you do that the black doesn't stay black. Instead, it brightens, too, becoming gray. With HDR values, black stays at a value of 0,0,0. However, the closer a color is to white, the more dramatically its effect is increased. As you can see, this creates truly powerful lighting effects without relying on any lights at all!
One thing that I have discovered is that it's usually best to turn the material's Ambient setting to 0. Otherwise, this is the unmodified Basic Material. It also doesn't take a very high setting to have a profound effect. In fact, the effect seems to increase exponentially the higher the HDR value gets.
And just to really show off the possibilities, I ran a test using a piece by one of the masters of natural light, Christian Lassen (www.lassenart.com (http://www.lassenart.com)) -- someone who's work I've always found very inspiring. The top half is the original painting. The bottom half uses the Basic Material with Ambient 0, HDR 2.5, a small amount of color bump and to simulate a bit of film graininess a noise value of 0.015 at a radius of 1. Notice how not only does the sky come even more vividly to life, but so does the translucency of the waves, the water glistening on the rocks in the foreground, and (thanks to the specularity and color bump) even the ocean spray.
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035448162brm.jpg
Use this technique any time you have a natural light source in your ZBrush scenes to really bring them to life!