Reflection probes don’t just handle the shine, they also make your environment more sensitive to the light around it. To really make the scene pop, you might find that adding a few strategic invisible light sources helps fill in the gaps (places that may be too dark, or too flat).
Once you’ve set your Windlight and Sun location for basic shadows and highlights, you can start adding supporting lights using the default prim cubes.
Primary Light (Key Light)
First, create a cube, then go to the Features tab and select the box next to Light. This will turn your cube into a light source. By default it is quite strong, but you can play with the numbers to see what suits the scene.
We’ll treat this cube as the primary light, it’s goal is to do most of the heavy lifting, and create the bones of the lighting for the scene. Discovering where its best to place it is a matter of moving it around, without taking your eye off the subject in your photos. Watch the quick demo here.
Pro tip: keep your camera at the general angle you plan to take your photo from while you move the cube. This lets you see how the light hits the subject in real time.
Secondary Light (Rim Light)
This light will be used to highlight specific details to add depth and dimension to your subject.
To create the Secondary Light, select the Primary Light cube, then hold shift while dragging it along any of the axis handles (red, green or blue). Next move it behind your subject. The best way to find the perfect placement is by moving it around while keeping an eye on the edges of your subject:
Check out this quick clip to see how the secondary light catches the edges. Notice how it affects the ice, cork, plate, and tray, and how it catches the right edges as the light shifts toward the extreme right.
Pro tip: Keep your secondary light subtle. You want to add depth, not wash out the image.
Organising Your Lights
Once you’re happy with the placement of both lights, make sure the Edit Menu is up so you can select them, then hold the shift key and left click both of the cubes. If you want to be sure they’re selected, check Show Highlight. Once they’re selected, click the Link button.
You can now go to the General tab and rename your lights to anything you like. I named them “Light Source.” This makes them easy to find and manage once we make them invisible.
Invisibility
Since we don’t want these cubes showing up in our final photos, we need to make them invisible. To do this, click on the Texture tab and next to the Transparency, type the value 100. This will make them completely disappear.
Now your scene is lit, and you’re ready to snap some photos!
♥