Clarification on positions of the 3 lights in 3-point light system

[Bilal_11]

This is the 3-point light system Mikey used in the lecture:

I used a 3-point light system as well in this scene:

My question is, which is the right way to use the 3-point light system, the light positions relative to the object or light positions relative to the camera?

[Miss_B]

I’m not sure which is the “right” way to do it, but I use 3-point lighting in other 3D software, and I usually set up the positions relative to the object(s) being rendered.

I also have a second camera in each scene, so depending on which camera I happen to be using at any given time, it always seems to work out better if I use the object(s) as the focus for the light setup.

As clarification, I don’t as a general rule do final renders in Blender, as I’m usually rendering what I’m modeling so I can tell how it’s coming along. I then export the model, and import it into the software I’m going to do the final render in. Needless to say, if I was doing a final render in Blender, a very full scene with a lot of objects in it would more than likely need a different setup for the 3-point lights, possibly even needing more than a 3-point light setup.

Just my 2¢ FWIW, as I’m sure others will have other opinions on how they use 3-point lighting.

[NP5]

It will depend on the situation. What effect or look you want. It is not a ‘rule’ just a generally good setup. In an outdoor scene, you may want the ‘sun’ fixed in one place even if the camera moves to maintain consistency between renders. If you are indoors you may be replicating the in scene lights, fixed relative to the objects. But taking an image of an object is like portraiture where the three light set up originated from I believe. Lights in a studio. They can be fixed to the subject position, or moved for different effects.

[FedPete]

There are famous photographers working with black and white photos, who are using only one lamp!

It’s all about the visual effect you want to create. And the 3 point lighting is just a helpful rule of thumb. No need to follow them.
When you are looking through your window. All the magic outside is using only one lamp, the sun.

• KEY, is the main light the see the object (the sun)
• FILL, is used to fill out dark shadows not directly lit by the KEY lamp. ( These are the sun rays reflecting and bouncing off from the environment - Blender has a World lighting too! )
• Backlight, same as FILL, but used to get a nice glow around parts of the object. As in shining light through the ears of a person.