- In the camera viewport, on the top left, click on the word that describes the shading mode of your view port.
- Under Lighting and Shadows, enable Enable Hardware Shading and Enable Shadows.

We will start the lighting by creating our main light source. I had imagined my character standing under a street lamp, so I have decided to create a V-Ray Light with soft shadows coming from the top right of the image, leaving the left side of the character in the shadow.

- From the Create menu on the right, click on the Light icon.
- Change the light from Photometric to V-Ray.
- Click on VRayLight and drag the viewport to create an area light.
- Try to position it as in Fig.05.
- In the VRayLight options, change the Multiplier value to 15.
- Leave the color as pure white.
- I have set the Half-length size to 0.55m and the Half-width to 0.60m.
- I have increased the Sampling Subdivisions to 12 to reduce the noise a bit.
- Render (F9) and adjust the position and intensity.

Rim Light 1

As the left side of the character is in the shadow, we will create a rim light so that the full silhouette of his body is readable. I have chosen a cool turquoise color to bring some color in and I have tried to position the light in order to leave a bit of darkness between the main light and the rim light to add some "darkness” to the character (Fig.06).



- From the Create menu on the right, click on the Light icon.
- Change the light to Standard.
- Create a Target Spot light.
- Place it on the left side of the image coming from the back of the character.
- Enable Shadows and change the shadow type from Shadow Map to VRayShadow.
- In the Intensity/Color/Attenuation menu, change the Multiplier to 50.
- Set the light color to light turquoise (R:94, G:167, B:156).
- Change the Decay Type to Inverse Square.
- Change the Start distance to 0.3m.
- In the Spotlight Parameters, set the Hotspot to 43 and the Falloff to 66.9.
- In the VRay Shadows parameters, enable Area shadow and set the U, V and W size to 0.1m.
- Press F9 to render and adjust.

Rim Light 2

To add a bit more drama to the image let's place a warmer rim light on the right (Fig.07).


- Create another Target Spot light.
- Place it on the left side of the image, coming from the back of the character (as in the image).
- Enable Shadows and change the shadow type to VRayShadow.
- In the Intensity/Color/Attenuation menu change the Multiplier to 110.
- Set the light color to light yellow (R:255, G:231, B:168).
- Change the Decay Type to Inverse Square.
- Change the Start distance to 0.3m.
- In the Spotlight Parameters, set the Hotspot to 43 and the Falloff to 66.9.
- In the VRayShadows parameters, enable Area shadow and set the U, V and W size to 0.1m.
- Press F9 to render and adjust.

Ambient Light

In order to fill the black areas, we will create a global dark blue light. It is not a good idea to have completely black areas, because you will never be able to manipulate those image areas in post-production (Fig.08).