I have been out of the game, and I’m a little bit unsure of all the new settings blender has these days, so I’d like to ask a couple of general questions about how everyone has their scenes set up:
Lighting:
It used to be(because of scanline) that either radiosity or spotlights were the only things to use, because no other type of light cast shadows.
With the inclusion of the ray tracer, all lights can cast shadows while ray tracing, so what light setups do you guys use?
Is the good old 3 point setup still working well, do you have your fill and back lights casting shadows?
Do you still use spots lights, or do sun/hemi/area lights work better now that they can cast shadows?
Also, what is the deal with area lighting? can someone tell me the point of area lighting and how it is meant to be used?
Rendering:
Is radiosity still a decent solution for lighting? Or are most things AO/Ray traced these days?
I know there are always special times when you’d use different things, but for the bulk of your work, what do you use?
As far as ray tracing goes, are there any options for it, to make it faster and less rays traced? I can only find AO settings and then a “ray” button…
Materials:
Does anyone use ZTransp and EnvMaps anymore, or have they been taken over by ray tracing too???
hmm thats about it for now… I just don’t know all the new features, and can’t tell if the modeling i’m doing is outdated or whatnot…
Thanks for any help!!!
-MacGyver
PS please post about anything new and useful like Loop cuts too, I just found those, and they’re AMAZING!!!
if there are any new gems in blender in the last couple months, please post them!
pss I know there are a lot of post on new features and such, but I’m just wondering which ones people are actually using in their everyday modeling, and which methods are archahic…