I am writing this a a general guide to give a starting place for most 3d lighting...the most common is 3 point lighting...in daz studio it can consist of any combination of the three light types offered... point (general area light), distant (parallel light...lights scene evenly good for sunlight when using ray tracing as main light), and spotlight (last two of which you can use null target to direct light...highly recommended for ease of control of your lighting)
1. First load a char in daz studio...in this case I used V4.2 with default material and added a pose morph:
2. Go to create>spotlight you should get a dialog like this to pop up:
if you don't see the options in image click options at the bottom put a check in create a Persistent Point at Target (null) and click accept.
3 don't panic!!! if its your fist time putting your own lighting in scene...it will go dark...that is because the main light in daz has shut down so your lighting can be used...first thing to do is to go to your scenes tab and click on the spotlight target and move it up slightly...this will orient the spotlight to the spotlight target null...(this is what you use to point your light with...anywhere you move this in the scene the spotlight will follow...also anywhere you move you spotlight in the scene it will always point to the target...neat huh...grin) you should see your image look like this:
4. Now in your scenes tab highlight the spot light and move it somewhere in front of your figure...it is now up to you where you want your main source of light to come from...
in the parameters for this light turn on the shadow maps...ray tracing is preferred but if you have a daz older then 3.0 you may find that your render time is dramatically increased...3.0 renders much faster...if you don't have it ...opt for deep shadow map... set intensity to achieve desired effect and spread angle to how much area you want your spotlight to light up...
again these are my settings and I change them often during the tweaking stage....but its a good place to start...also note that you can change your color of light here..."Warning!!!" a little color goes a long way toward changing the color of your scene so make slight changes and render to see effect.
4. Now comes the most overlooked light in most all 3d work...the rim light...this light is used to highlight the outline of the figure form one side or the other from behind...it is most always done with a spotlight at high intensity with no shadow map.... that being said click to create new target light...check in create null target as you did earlier...click on spotlight target 2 and move slightly for orientation...( note the null is created in the center of the 3d scene where x ,y and z converge ...usually where your figure is if you haven't moved it)
Now click on spotlight 2 and move it to the right or left side of your figure ( usually opposite side of the main light exsample...main light is in the front to the left...then the rim light should be from behind to the right...unless there is a light source in the background...then it should be oriented to that light source...)
I generally add one rim light to each figure in a scene to get desired effect...it is very effective to give that nice shiny edge to a sword...just remember where your light source is in the scene and stay true to it in using this effect.
5. Next we have the fill light...this is most always a point light set to very low intensity placed in front of the figure to lighten up and pull details out of the dark shadowy areas. it is best used sparingly and can easily wash out your scene if used incorrectly...
Now lets render and see what we have...always remember that what you see on the screen is not always what you will have when it is rendered...so now comes the tweaking stage...render and change....due to some rendering time...this is the most time consuming part of any picture...I have made a scene in minutes only to take hours adjusting the lighting to get just the effect I want...
This is a render using the default texture that comes with V4...which I might say leaves allot to be desired...but look how much it is enhanced using the 3 point lighting...
this is the light set up top view
You may want to use a distant light as your main light...it is good in a scene for simulating sunlight outdoors... this is the same set up but the distant light is used and set above and slightly behind showing a different effect / mood...
play around and see what cool effects you can come up with for mood...
It takes 4 lights to make a fire work and look like it is glowing and lighting the scene so that it gives the warm cozy feeling of a fire...
I use 2 spotlights above the prop...one set just in front of it the one directly above it with a narrow spread angle and the one in front set to a wider spread to give the glow around the fire source... the third is a point light set in front of the prop toward the base of it to give the fire its glow..the last is a redirect of the main light set in back of and pointed up toward the figure between the fire prop and the figure with shadows set to deep shadow map... exscuse the bad spelling in the pic...no spell check...lol
In this one I changed from a point light to a spot light and used max spread angle....remember to keep your intensity values low for the fire...light in daz seems to multiply in value as you add more lights to the same spot...ie one light at 200 may just barely light the fire object ...but two set to 20 will make it glow...and with the 3rd point light added...we have fire...grin
note the rim light has not changed in any of these scenes...it gives it that final touch that makes the scene pop...enjoy.