In this part of my Blender Tutorial series I will focus in on lighting by covering all the lighting lamps, light emitting planes, and 3 point lighting. I’ll also cover a bit on the Cycles Renderer materials and much more.

The file I used is available here. A cheat sheet with every thing I typed in the tutorial is available below the video. I hope you find the video useful.

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Cheat Sheet

---------- Blender 5 ----------

I. Cycles Render Engine & Lighting

	A. The render engine defines how lighting, shadows, materials, textures, etc. look
	
	B. Example
	
		1. Create Plane and scale to 10 for X & Y
		
		2. Move Cube Location Z to 1
		
		3. Split screen down and make the bottom view Rendered, Upper Right 			3D View, and Upper Left Node Editor
		
			a. The Node Editor allows you to combine multiple Shaders into a 				final output
			
			b. Click the Render (Camera) in Properties and set Sampling -> 				Samples Preview to 100 to cut down on graininess (High Quality 				Renders have minimum Samples of 500 or more)
			
		4. Create a Cube with Diffuse Shader
			a. Location 0, 0, 1
			b. Scale 1
			c. Material Diffuse
			
		5. Create a Cube with Glossy Shader
			a. Location -2.5, -2, 1
			b. Scale 1
			c. Material Glossy
			
		6. Lamp Options 
			a. Max Bounce : Number of times light reflects after hitting a 					surface
			
			b. Cast Shadow : Turn off to speed up rendering
			
			c. Multiple Importance : May reduce noise in render
		
		7. Light Options
		
			a. Light with a Point Lamp
				i. Create a Point
				ii. Location 1, -3, 8
				iii. Surface Emission
				iv. Strength 1000
				v. As it is scaled larger the light dims
				vi. Rotating the Point has no effect
				vii. Click eye in Outliner to hide the Point
				
			b. Create a Sun Lamp
				i. Location -5, 1, 10
				ii. Moving the Sun has no impact on lighting
				iii. Rotating on the X & Y access changes the direction of the 				light and shadows
				
			c. Create a Spot Lamp
				i. A Spot lamp is exactly that. It focuses the light in one area 					and Blend defines the softness of the edge
				ii. Location -2, -.5, 10
				iii. Strength 1000
				iv. Size 50
				v. Blend .15
				
			d. Create a Hemi Lamp (Acts Like Sun Lamp)
				i. A directional light source with a 180 degree hemisphere
				ii. Like the Sun lamp the distance from the objects doesn't 					matter
				iii. Location 4, -1, 10
				iv. Rotation Y 25, X & Z 0
				v. Strength : 1.5
				
			e. Create an Array Lamp
				i. Area lamps are rectangles that can be resized
				ii. Location -1, -3, 8
				iii. Rectangle Size 10, 10
				iv. Strength 1000
		
			f. Emit from a Plane 
				i. Create a Plane 
				ii. Give it a Material Emission, Strength 25
				iii. Move Location X -5, Y -5, Z 6
				iv. Rotation Y -40, X & Z 0
				v. Scale X 3, Y & Z 1
				vi. To hide the plane, but keep the emit -> Object in 						Properties -> Cycles Settings -> Uncheck Camera
				
			g. 3 Point Lighting
				i. 7 for Top View
				ii. Monkey
					a. Location 2, -2, .5
					b. Rotation -36, 0, 50
					c. Material Mix Shader
						1. Fresnel (Light Reflection) in Factor
						2. Diffuse Rough .7 Shader Blue
						3. Glossy Rough 0 Shader
						4. Mix Shader into Material Out Surface
						 
				iii. 1st Light
					a. Plane Light Surface Emission Tan Color Strength .5
					b. Location 10, 0, 4
					c. Rotation -115, 0, 100
					d. Scale 2, 2, 1
					e. Object in Properties -> Cycles Settings -> Uncheck 						Camera
					
				iv. 2nd Light
					a. Plane Light Surface Emission Light Blue Color 						Strength 3.5
					b. Location 2, -8, 4
					c. Rotation -130, 0, 0
					d. Scale 3, 3, 1
					e. Object in Properties -> Cycles Settings -> Uncheck 						Camera
					
				v. 3rd Light
					a. Plane Light Surface Emission Midtone Blue Color 						Strength .5
					b. Location -3, 3, 3
					c. Rotation -180, -55, -35
					d. Scale 1, 1, 1
					e. Object in Properties -> Cycles Settings -> Uncheck 						Camera