Hi! Welcome to Render.courses. As you're reading this, you're probably having trouble creating realistic renders.

Let me help you!

But first, let’s break down some of the most common mistakes made by 3D artists.
These are the things that prevent your renders from looking realistic:

• Low-quality 3D model geometry.
• Simple materials.
• Composition and camera setup mistakes.

But the main thing that defines how realistic your render looks is lighting.
Let’s go deeper into this and see the most common mistakes made by 3D artists when setting up lighting in 3D scenes.

The first one has to do with references.

Many beginning visualizers don’t use any references or mood boards to help them with lighting setup.
They don’t think it necessary. As a result, their lighting setup process becomes random and chaotic.

So here comes my first tip:
You need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. So before you start working on lighting, be sure to find a reference and stick to it. Although this recommendation may seem trivial to you, it’s crucial for attaining a good result.

The next mistake is light-shadow disbalance:
This problem usually occurs when a light source is positioned incorrectly. For example, if a light source shines from the viewer’s side, the light it produces may look flat.

Another pitfall has to do with shadows. They can be too bright or too dark. This mistake is quite common in day lighting scenes, when shadows from the sun are either too white, or, on the contrary, too dark, to the point of disappearing in blackness. You should avoid that.

The next frequent mistake I'd like to address is
a lack of balance between artificial and natural light sources
It’s when you have a bright sunny day in the render, but the 3D artist chooses to light up the windows all the same.
This mistake has to do with imbalanced brightness of fill light, or incorrect balance between fill light, natural light, and artificial interior light. All this makes the scene look unrealistic.

Another common mistake regards sky brightness, when the sky has highlighted areas.
Or there can be the opposite situation, when the scene is too dark and mismatches the lighting. Sky brightness and light inside the scene are directly correlated, and you need to find the right balance between them.

On top of that, incorrect lighting may be due to technical mistakes that you make when working on your 3D scene.

This happens when a 3D artist lacks knowledge of how to set up lighting or how to use 3DS Max or a rendering engine, like Corona.

To give you a hand with light-shadow balance, artificial light sources, sky brightness, and technical aspects of lighting setup, we have made a special Workshop.
By taking it, you will learn how to set up realistic and beautiful lighting in Corona Render and 3DS Max.

We know that you value your time and want to learn fast. This workshop is an easy and hassle-free way to master beautiful and realistic lighting in 3D scenes.

In two hours, you’ll learn how to set up realistic lighting in your architectural projects, fast and easy.
The workshop covers the main types of exterior lighting:
- day
- dusk
- artificial
- overcast
Also, we share smart life hacks for setting up each of these lighting schemes step-by-step, to achieve a beautiful result in a short time. And you get a special bonus: our collection of 4 types of light references:

For those who want to dive deeper into the topic, we show how to create hybrid exterior lighting.
The renders you’re now seeing on your screen were created by our students.
Go ahead and click the link below.
We offer a 50% discount: 40eur 19 eur on the workshop within the first hour.
So hurry up and impress your clients with top-quality renders!