VIRTUAL Studio Photography (Learning; Planning): Set.a.Light 3D; Virtual Lighting Studio Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

hi I'm Tony Northrup and I found a
couple of apps that let you model
virtual photo studios including moving
lights around trying different types of
lights posing models and first I think
it's a great planning tool if you're
actually planning photo shoot in a
studio but even if you're not it's a
fantastic learning tool because one of
the best ways to learn lighting is to
build yourself a big huge studio and by
$10,000 worth of lights and light
modifiers and then hire models and get
backdrops but that's not something most
people can do and these allow you to do
it in a virtual environment at your own
desk and you can learn the difference
between a beauty dish and a softbox and
a standard strobe head and you can learn
when you'd want to use a grid versus a
reflector or a diffuser that type of
thing so let's dig into the two apps
that I found both you can try for free
this first one is completely free go to
SDP debt io / VLS and I'll take you
there now it's the virtual lighting
studio and it is just a web page but
when you visit this you'll see that it's
it's really cool you don't have to
install anything you can just try it out
on any app click along the left here to
choose different models and then you can
modify the different choose from
different lights at the bottom down here
so you can do things like change the
position of the light to kind of go off
to the side and see what side lighting
would look like you can change the
intensity of the light you could apply a
gel here you could add a different light
let's shift this one off to the left and
we'll put a purple gel on it so you can
try out different types of effects like
that it's really cool click the solo
button down here to turn off all other
lights that's a great way to just
isolate the effect of a single light and
you know what's important for this type
of thing is is just playing you can see
that it's it works really well in
showing you the cache light that's in
the models eyes here you can so you can
see this straight on flash is creating a
cache light and then kind of see the
cache lights off to the side too if we
raise it up
raise up the main light here we can see
now we're introducing some shadow under
the nose and under the chin so you can
get an idea of what it's like when you
raise or lower a light you can see at
some point now we've raised it up enough
that we lost the catch light these are
the types of things that you learn by
experimenting with lights so you can
kind of get through that fast part of
the learning curve let's point out this
button up here turns on ambient light as
if just light that's bouncing around the
room in general you can control just how
much ambient light there is in the room
this tool I feel like is more about
experimenting and learning than actual
planning the next way I'll show you is
also free visit this URL SD Pio / s al
you can download this tool for Windows
or Mac it's the set a light 3d studio
there's a trial you you have to buy it
if you want to use it beyond like 14
days but the the basic version is pretty
inexpensive I think it's like 40 bucks
but you might not need to go past the
trial and I don't I don't have a
relationship with either one of these
companies I just found their software
and wanted to show it to so I don't have
like an affiliate code or anything like
that once you launch the satellite tool
the place I'd suggest starting is going
through the video guide here so I'm
going to show you the basics of it they
have tutorials too that it'll take you a
little more in depth if you want to but
let's click open demo set here you can
also start with just a completely blank
room and build everything yourself but
opening the demo set will give you an
idea and allow you to more easily browse
through different portrait setups so
here we see their default configuration
which is a camera on a stand over here
and then looks like five lights we have
the main light here coming off from the
left we have fill light on the right
here and then we have a couple of one
kicker light here that's pointed at the
model adding a little bit of rim
lighting to her body here and then two
different lights pointed at the backdrop
to create this light and this light that
are just lighting the backdrop so in the
center here you see the main studio you
can pan around the studio by holding
down the
right mouse button and just dragging so
that pans and you can use the scroll
wheel on your mouse to move in and out
so this kind of allows you to browse the
studio you can view get the view through
the camera by clicking this little
button that switches which is more
dominant in the scene so let's switch
back and I'll show you just basically
how to configure things you can click
subjects here lights models backdrops
whatever and then modify their
properties so you can change her pose
here you know what let's find ourselves
a model with some clothes let's switch
to this one okay so I click that and
I'll click apply to stage and this will
change the stage so now in this
particular just a sample demo sample
demo that they have they actually have
two lights in the camera frame let's pan
around a little bit so we can see
everybody and I'll zoom in I'll select
the model and let's say you're getting
ready for a shot where you know the
model is going to be wearing yellow you
can click that and switch her outfit to
a bright nice yellow
you can grab a light here and kind of
change the direction of the light by
grabbing at the top you can grab the
stand to raise or lower the light let's
say you want to switch to more of a on
axis lighting one really nice thing this
happens in the real world to me all the
time is now you can see the beauty dish
is actually in the shot I'm always
struggling with trying to get the light
on access and then I discover I'm stuck
in the shot so that's the kind of
real-world things that you can discover
let me just move it up until it's just
out of the shot and then I end up
pointing this back down something that's
useful is to look through the camera and
then you can browse through the set list
here so let's say you want to change
this reflector here you can see it's
highlighted here so we're looking at the
one on camera right or no we're looking
at the one on camera left this is an
overhead view with that here I can now
change the power output from this
particular strobe and it's actually
simulating real strobes you can see some
configurations here it's this is a 500
watt second strobe so if you have real
studio lights and you know you just have
like the 250 watt second alien bees you
can switch that just so you understand
what the limitations of that particular
strobe might be so let's go ahead and
crank that up now let's say you want
more light from the beauty dish I'll
click that and then I'll crank that
light up some let's take a snapshot of
this so I'll click this camera button
here it's going to take a snapshot and
you can save see it that it saved it
here let's replace this beauty dish with
the softbox and we can kind of
understand what the difference between
those configurations is going to be what
I'm going to do is I'll just turn this
off I'll show they leave it in the
studio so I'll turn that off and drag it
out of the way drag another way no click
the wrong thing
and to add another light I'll go down to
the lights tap at the bottom here and
I'll grab the beauty dish and I'll drag
it right to the same no I didn't want to
do it beauty dish I wanted to do a
softbox so let's get a real big softbox
and position it just just out of the
frame there point it right at the model
you can see it's drawing that red light
there just so you know where it's it's
pointing and now let's switch over to
the camera view and it takes a second to
render so you could see the light was
kind of fluctuating there it's doing
some incredible amounts of math and it
takes a second to render you can adjust
the quality of the render by going to
settings and then quality options and
drag these sliders up or down even on a
fast computer the high quality renders
will bog it down so the default settings
tend to work fairly well for me now
let's take another snapshot of this and
now that we have two snapshots here you
can see I can switch between the
snapshot with a beauty dish and the
snapshot with the softbox let's double
click it actually view at full size so
this is the original beauty dish and
this is a softbox and you can notice a
couple of differences the the beauty
dish had more light output because less
light is wasted with the beauty dish and
the quality of the light fall-off like
look at her face here is quite different
the beauty dish is actually softer but
less light is coming out now you'd
compensate for that normally by raising
the light but that's the kind of thing
that you learn working in a studio and
it might take you months or years
working a studio to figure that kind of
thing out but the software makes it
really fast and easy to figure that out
let's look at another example of how you
might change a light modifier let's find
a scene that has a backdrop light here
looking at Daniel here I'm going to
click apply to stage and open it up and
so he has a pretty moody light on him
let's click this backdrop light here
it's this light that's making this
splash of light on the background and as
we click that we can see on the left
side here once it's selected you can
change properties of that light over
here
light former it has grid number three on
it so it has a fairly open grid if I
chose grid number one that's a tighter
grid and you can see the spot of light
became much smaller the light output
also became smaller so if you were to
use a tighter grid it's just going to
block light so you have to kind of crank
up the output and now we've dramatically
changed the background because the light
was forming the background you could
take the grid off completely and now
what you see is a huge splash of light
so it's just really cool to be able to
play with different aspects of lighting
like that so so quickly because even if
you had all this gear it would take it
quite a while I accidentally clicked
away um so let's go here and just turn
this light off completely and we can
focus on the what the model looks like
I'm going to select the model in this
little setup and you can see that there
are some properties of the model you can
change down here you could change a skin
tone that can actually be a pretty big
deal when you're setting up lights
sometimes we'll have a day we're
shooting portraits and we'll have
somebody with really fair skin and then
somebody with darker skin and you have
to go in and kind of change lights if
you have a dark haired model like this
on a dark back drop that hair is going
to disappear unless you add yourself a
hair light to Isleta knopf just hair
light you can kind of see what I mean
you can see his hair completely
disappears now because he has dark hair
and he's against a dark background
select the model and go to styling hair
color and given lighter hair and you can
see that lighter hair is catching a lot
more light there are a couple of ways
that this app will not accurately
simulate what a real studio might look
like a real studio almost always has
some ambient light and it if you have
some windows they'll be some light
bouncing around it's pretty easy to
completely hide that by using bright
lights but at the same time a lot of
photographers choose to work with that
ambient light you can't really simulate
a mew ambient light accurately and what
your studio might look like also kind of
a big weakness of the app is that it
doesn't seem to accurately model light
shining through hair or fabric and I'll
show you that now
it's backlighting with fabric or hair
will create a rim light where it
actually glows hair and fabric seems to
be modeled more as a solid object here
so let's let's just drag in a brand new
light and I'll use it to create some
backlighting this accent to which I
probably would have called a snoot I'll
drag it right behind them here let's
zoom in some and they'll point it right
at his head
okay so now that that's pointed animals
switch back so you can see it's catching
his hair here but it's just illuminating
it it's not kind of giving it that glow
you just have to take my word for it if
we were shooting in the real world you
would see that it would actually fill
the back of his head with some light
especially with that level of output
even as I crank it all the way up is
just kind of reflecting off of it rather
than shining through it so it doesn't
get all the textures right but
nonetheless it's still a really really
powerful learning tool and in just about
every other way the modeling is
incredibly incredibly realistic if you
want to remove something from the satin
select it and then you can cut click
remove from set here select models down
here to add additional models probably
the the basic male and basic female are
the easiest things to start with because
they're both very flexible so just kind
of drag the the basic male onto the
scene and let's make look at the camera
here
click this and you should look at the
camera changes head position yeah there
is looking at the camera okay I can
select this and choose from a variety of
different poses so I can change the way
he's standing
I can even hit play here and to kind of
move around a little bit
starts starts even get a little creepy
right this is like some West world stuff
we have going on afraid what does he
think of me you can change different
aspects of the outfit of course you can
change the color of a shirt let's make
it white but you can also click this
little arrow here and completely change
your shirt so if for example you're
doing some boudoir photography and you
want to be able to highlight the texture
and the muscles you can take a shirt off
and there's an option down here for
muscles somewhere ok let's give them
some muscle so we have something to
define and as we look through the camera
you can see this has fairly hard light
so it's showing some of that muscle
definition if we were to for example add
a big soft box on axis what that would
do is essentially fill in a lot of that
light I put it right in front and he
would lose a lot of that kind of muscle
definition so let's drop that so it's
acting more as a fill than a main light
oh I put on the same sign I need to put
it from the other side
yes come over to the other side and you
can just hover your cursor over the
subject the light of the model or
whatever to rotate it so let's look at
them close up here and you can see with
this setup if I turn off this particular
light suddenly here he's got a lot of
definition if I turn that light on he's
lost a lot of that definition that's one
of the things you learned through lots
of experimentation or just a few minutes
in the set alight 3d studio app it's an
incredibly deep app and I could spend a
four or five hours probably teaching you
every in and out aspect of it I don't
want to do that right now I will show
you a few other things you can look up
here and you're when you're in the
camera view and you can change camera
settings so you could for example switch
to an aps-c 1.5 X crop camera and put on
the 70-200 lens and then let's say zoom
it at 200 millimeters this is a weird
user interface element but if I click
that and drag I can now move the camera
up and down so we can switch to more of
a head shot perspective and I'll click
this to switch between landscape and
portrait mode so suddenly I have kind of
a a tight head shot there
let's go just full Peter early let's
brighten that backdrop up a little bit
and make it a white backdrop so I'll
select the backdrop here I'll click this
to change the color to white and so I'm
using white backdrop why is the backdrop
in the preview here gray because there's
no light on it a white backdrop without
light is black or gray so the way we
solve that is by putting a light on it
go down to the lights tab here just grab
any old light with a reflector drop it
there point it right behind our models
head and then we can kind of change the
output okay so now because I added that
one light we have a high key portrait I
can turn that off and I go and the
backdrop turns gray so you can it's
awesome right one difference I'll say
here is I'm lighting up the backdrop
this would definitely cause a loss in
contrast of my photo because of the
heavy heavy back lighting that element
of the lens isn't really modeled
probably the best way to start with the
app is to go through their different
demo setups down here for example here's
a demonstration of Rembrandt lighting
I'll double click that and then click
apply and we'll switch over and then
I'll click apply to stage so this is
traditional Rembrandt lighting and you
can see the entire setup is here
this is a really cool scene because it's
a common modern style which is working
the shadow into the scene and by
clicking apply to stage here I can see
just how simple this is just somebody
against the wall with a single light use
my right mouse button to to drag it
around cameras way over here at an angle
that's actually two lights because
there's one backdrop light to put that
splash of color and it makes it really
easy for me to see just what the
difference would be if I turn that light
on or off
button and you can go into the photo
viewer so what it's doing now is it's
taking a photo and rendering it in
higher quality this takes a little bit
because even on a computer with high
power it's doing an awful lot of work
this is going to be a more accurate
representation than you saw in the
preview it's actually more closely
modeling each of the different lights
once that's done you can click lighting
diagram export here and it's going to
show you the light setup that you
modeled in overhead and 3d views and
then a sample of the photo you can see
you can pick different templates here
and when you're ready you can export it
as either a JPEG or PDF so if you are
going into the studio and you're going
to make this real you'll have a diagram
that's ready for you check it out I
think it's both these are really really
useful tools if you want to learn more
about photographic techniques including
things like using studio lights check
out my book stunning digital photography
there you can get it at SDP dot io /
d'Or my photography buying guide has
information about choosing different
light modifiers that's also on Amazon or
at SDIO slash door and thanks to Chris
ez Annie took a guess at how to
pronounce your name for sending in that
tip I really like that app and I wanted
to share with everybody hope find it
useful thanks like share subscribe bye