Lighting, Cameras and Rendering
Light types
| Light | Behaves like |
|---|---|
| Point | a bare bulb, light in all directions |
| Spot | a cone of light |
| Area | a softbox; soft shadows |
| Sun | parallel light from far away |
| HDRI environment | a 360° photo lighting the scene realistically |
Three-point lighting
A classic product and portrait setup:
- Key light: the main light, at about 45° to the subject.
- Fill light: softer, on the other side, to lift shadows.
- Rim/back light: behind the subject, to separate it from the background.
For products, large area lights give soft, flattering reflections; an HDRI adds realistic reflections on glossy surfaces.
Cameras
- Focal length: 50–85 mm for natural product shots; wide angles distort.
- Depth of field: blur the background to focus attention.
- Composition: rule of thirds, leading lines, enough empty space for text in marketing images.
Render engines
| Engine | Strength |
|---|---|
| Path tracers (Blender Cycles, V-Ray) | realistic light, reflections and shadows; slower |
| Real-time (Blender EEVEE, game engines) | fast previews and animation; less physically accurate |
Use real-time engines for previews and stylised work, path tracing for photoreal stills. Denoising lets you render with fewer samples.
Output
Render PNG for stills with transparency, or EXR for professional compositing. For animations, render image sequences (safer if a render crashes), then encode to video.
Exercise
Set up a product shot of your mug with three-point lighting and an HDRI, a 70 mm camera with shallow depth of field, and render it in both a real-time engine and a path tracer. Compare quality and render time.
Check yourself
- What are the three lights in three-point lighting?
- Why do HDRIs improve glossy materials?
- When should you use a path tracer?
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