The lighting on this looks really good, probably from really simple principles. How can I recreate it?

[Sid Edwards]

The soft diffuse lighting in this CORE video seems like a really good starting point for a lot of projects: https://cgcookie.com/lessons/exploring-other-examples

but, I’m having trouble recreating it. Most likely, it’s either an HDRI or a sky texture, but I don’t know if I’m missing other settings and what color management they’re using. How can I achieve a soft realistic look like this using only HDRI, typical blender settings and color management?

[Martin Bergwerf]

Look for Overcast Sky HDRIs (PolyHaven is really good); for instance the top right one here gives nice diffuse lighting:

[Omar Domenech]

Maybe Ewa has that file and can share it so we can see what’s inside it and dissect it like a mad scientist. Like how they opened frogs back in the day and people where outraged. It advanced medicine though, so I guess it was ok. There were probably some freaks, but you know, it would be hard to tell so we just had to deal with it.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Yes, of course!

You can just look at the Course File.

This is the one used in this Lesson (it’s from Polyhaven):

[Sid Edwards]

Huh, I never thought about the course file, thanks for pointing that out!

[Sid Edwards]

This is cool, but I’m confused.

This appears to be using the Cycles Experimental engine, not ordinary Cycles. Is that…how…is it still path-tracing? Or, is this considered reliable realism in cycles experimental? What’s generating this look?

I don’t get it, why isn’t the image having to re-path-trace as I rotate things and move them?

[Omar Domenech]

Experimental doesn’t change anything as far as I know, it just enables features that are not ready and can be buggy. The reason is just that Ewa is an amazing artist and has developed an artistic eye for things looking good. It’s as simple as that in my opinion. As for the image, maybe you put a pin on the render so it doesn’t update? Maybe denoise? Maybe you’re in material preview? Post some screenshots. 

[Sid Edwards]

It wasn’t just material preview, there’s this “denoise” option in cycles, it makes the render look smooth as you rotate in move it, so that seems to be likely why,

[Martin Bergwerf]

Cycles Experimental just adds the Adaptive Subdivision to the Subdivision Surface Modifier.

[Author]

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