Shadow is as important as light

When working in lighting and using shadow it is a good idea to understand that all shadow are not the same. Depending on environment, light source and other light sources the shadow is different. You can in our case, digitally, be creative and have shadow tell a story. So did you ever look at a reference image and tried replicating the lighting, but for some reason something was off, maybe the shadows? This should help you to analyze and pick the right solution.

Cast Shadow

Cast Shadow are shadow created when light hits a form, and the form is next to surface that can cast the shadow.

Contact Shadow

This shadow is created is often the blurry shadow right beneath the object itself, it is how you know that an object is in contact with a surface.

Shadow Side

This side represents the darker side of an object. In lighting, all these shadows often receive fake lighting to make it more unique and realistic.

It is important to understand that shadow isn’t black and mostly receives some color or source of light. That is why we will add fill lights to it, to get the desired effect. So even though logically you might place out one light source, you should be doing more than that.

Shadow Size

Understanding shadow size is important as it allows you to understand what type of light, where to put it, which angle and distant to use. The most important thing to keep in mind is the angle of the light source. If the light is coming from above, the shadow is going to be very small. If the light is coming from further down, the shadow stretches out.

Another thing that factors in shadow size is the size of the light itself. A good rule is if the light source is smaller than the object, then the shadow is larger than the object. If the light source is bigger than the object, then the shadow is smaller. The reason for that is because if the light source is bigger, it casts more light and wraps around the object thus reducing the shadow size.

Lastly, the distance of the light will also affect the shadow size. This one however has a secondary thing to keep in mind as shown in the image above with the bear. The distance of the object receiving light and the surface casting the shadow also affects the size of the shadow.

So that is the basic you need to understand when lighting up your scenes in 3DS Max, Maya, Unreal, Unity or whatever really when looking at reference images.

That is it! Be sure to look at my previous blog or stop by my youtube channel.

Cheers