Lighting in Enclosed Spaces

Support Materials and Textures
1

I thought I’d ask for help here because I haven’t had any luck yet searching around and I’m not sure exactly what I should be looking for either.

I’ve been modeling a human face/head and I’m having an issue, most noticeably in the nostrils. It looks like any lights shining from above the head will illuminate the upward facing faces inside the nostril, causing them to glow very brightly even when the rest of the surrounding area is dark. This doesn’t look good at all. I’m not sure what the best solution would be to fix this. In real life the light would never make it into the nostrils because the rest of the head would block it, but I guess the lights in blender don’t assume this logic.

What is the best way to stop the nostrils from glowing? Preferably they would get darker the deeper they go into the head. Please let me know if I should attach any pictures or a .blend.

Thank you.

2

You are most likely using a light without ray shadows enabled. Does your lamp icon have a black dot, surrounded by solid-line circle surrounded by a dotted-line circle? Or is it a black dot with a single circle drawn around it with a solid line?

If there is no dotted line, select your lamp, hit F5, then look for the ‘Shadow and Spot’ panel, then hit the button ‘Ray Shadow’.

That should fix your issue.

3

you could also try using negative lights.
in the lamp settings, click the button labeled negative.

4

Close the back side of the nostrils and make sure the normals of the entire head are facing outward.