Let there be light

Like in photography, there is no scene without light. Studio provides a default light when you create a scene. This light is the equivalent of a very broad spotlight mounted on the camera. It only has the purpose of allowing you to see something while rendering the scene. The camera light gives us one of the worst possible results, light-wise, and should be avoided at all costs. Once we add a real light to the scene, the camera light is disabled and it stops doing its damage.

Lights are one of the most important parts of creating a scene. Good lighting with mediocre materials will lead to better results than poor lighting with excellent materials. Spending time in understanding lighting is probably one thing that will contribute the most effective results to your work. Forget technology, resolution, polygon density, and texture resolution—lighting is where miracles happen.

So, to understand how to light a scene, it's necessary to know what kind of lights we can use, what...