Customer Reviews

Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author has extensively updated this industry standard since its first release six years ago, and the result is a book that should absolutely be on every Color & Light Artist's shelf. What was a very good reference is now even better, with more sage advice, clear and logical insight regarding lighting different kinds of scenes (e.g. indoor, outdoor, daytime, nighttime), more information on technologies that have become popular in recent years (such as global illumination), and the addition of complementary materials at the author's web site. I have been using the 1st Edition of this book as a required text in my rendering classes for several years, and this much anticipated new version ties in even better. Even if you already own the 1st Edition, you are likely to find this update a worthwhile purchase. I would love to see this book's sister, Digital Texturing & Painting, rise to the same level of insight and clarity.

This book is amazing! It opened my eyes to so many things about lighting and rendering it's as if I've had a full course in lighting design, one in rendering, and some cinematography and color theory along the way. The best part is the way it keeps giving you new ideas, from other ways to add colors with different lights to tricks you can do in compositing.

The book is brilliantly simple, clear easy-to-understand writing throughout, even when describing very technical subjects like Polynomial Texture Mapping the author manages to keep the text readable, relevant, and useful, and he has lots of good pictures of things (renders, screenshots, diagrams, and photographic examples), to help pin down issues like the specific things to look for in adjusting subsurface scattering skin shaders. I've read the book cover to cover ~ and I'm going to be keeping it around my desk for years as a reference as well!

Most of the book is not software-specific, especially in terms of lighting techniques or creating texture maps the advice will work for anyone. The book only mentions 3D Studio Max (what I use) once in a while, and only has a few screenshots of settings in Max (along with lots of references to Maya, Renderman, Mental Ray et cetera) but still the whole book was completely useful to me, actually more useful because of its content than most of the software-specific books they keep cranking out with 3D Studio Max in the title.

The lighting challenge scenes are great, you have to download them yourself (there's no CD with the book...) but it's absolutely amazing that the author himself looked at my work and gave me feedback (spot-on feedback too!) when I posted my test render on the discussion forum. I'd have bought 10 books if it I had to, to get direct interaction with a top lighting expert working at Pixar! This book deserves more than 5 stars to reflect the amazingly generous author whose support goes above and beyond just writing a terrific book.

Kudos and Congratulations for such a great book, Mr. Birn!

As above, i've just finished reading the book cover to cover whilst lighting and (waiting for) renders at work and was thoroughly impressed. It covers an incredible range of topics from the very basics of lighting theory (which we can all use a reminder of every now and then!) through to some more complex ideas and concepts.

With the associated website (3drender.com) where there are numerous lighting challenges to download and particiapte in (the author himself critiques the work!) this will certainly improve your skills and also just give you a bit of nudge into looking at the world through the eyes of a 3D lighting artist.

Don't mistake me, this is not a specific piece of training material, but it is an invaluable source of reference, from the tables covering some suggested RGB values for lights to various physical properties as well. It really should be required reading for anyone vaguely interested in the lighting end of the 3D pipeline, and even for seasoned professionals it is great to have everything in one very well constructed, well written, and easy to navigate book.

Highly recommended.

The previous edition of Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn is very popular with those who wish to master 3D lighting and rendering as well as with those who teach this subject. It is suggested reading for digital lighting courses at several universities. This second edition is updated to reflect advancements in techniques and technology for digital 3D software.

The first few chapters cover traditional lighting concepts and answer basic questions such as which is the best lighting for various situations. Then, the author moves into more specific topics, beginning with shadows and occlusion. He discusses techniques for casting various types of shadows and what purpose shadows have in the scene. You cannot have shadows without light. Therefore, the author covers the different types of lighting such as global illumination, natural and artificial light. He also discusses how to light the characters in your scene and how lighting defines the character's form and movement.

When you model the characters and objects for your scene, they start out with a smooth, dull gray color and you will use shaders to give them color and texture. Birn discusses how to use several shaders including raytracing, Reyes algorithms and GPU acceleration. Besides shaders, you can also use texture mapping to add color and texture. Birn covers the types of texture maps, how they are made and how to align them to your model.

Eventually, it is time to build your scene or animation which requires placement of characters, objects, lights and cameras. The author discusses several rules for composition and staging. Once all the staging is complete, it's time to render your scene and Birn covers many professional tips for this technical subject including multiple renderings and flexibility.

Jeremy Birn has worked in the technical lighting field for many years. His recent works include Cars and The Incredibles.

Very usefull and instructive book. It covers all aspects of digital light and the natural one, the author doesn't apply the vast information covered to an especific software, so you can apply all this rich information with the software that you actually use. This book is a must for every people that whant to go deep in to digital light and renderings.

If you're a hobby 3D graphhics artist or thinking of entering into the world of computer graphics, then this book is an essential resource to give you that realism factor often missing in artists works seen today.

The Book is superbly presented in glossy paper format with excellently reproduced colour images, that generously fill the book as examples on how to achieve the right lighting for that perfect shot you were trying to setup, but till now had no idea of how to achieve it.

This volume is a how to for novice and advanced artist alike, brilliantly guiding you through the ins and outs of rendering the most perfectly realisticly shaded 3D image possible.

The first edition had chapters guide you through Lighting workflow, three point lighting, Shadows (a must),Qualities of light, Colour, Exposure, Composition and staging (worth the price of the book alone), Materials and rendering algorithms(tips to turn a good work into a masterpiece)and Compositing(the absolute icing on the cake).

This vastly expanded 2nd edition has even more must know techniques and inside tips to push your work to professional levels, extra chapters include comprehensive guides on how to: *Apply advanced rendering techniques using subsurface scattering, global illumination, caustics, occlusion, and high dynamic range images
* Design realistic materials and paint detailed texture maps
* Mimic real-life camera properties such as f-stops, exposure times, depth-of-field, and natural color temperatures for photorealistic renderings
* Render in multiple passes for greater efficiency and creative control
* Understand production pipelines at visual effects and animation studios
*Develop your lighting reel to get a job in the industry

There is a Lot one can learn from this brillianlty updated and expanded 2nd edition and dare I say that it has to be if not the best then one of the very best presentations on this topic I've ever had the good fortune to study from.

If you own the first edition, then you just have to get this new 2nd edition as its like owning a completely new volume.

Working with 3D for years as a hobby, my knowledge isn't extensive, but I had a few ideas of what should be covered in a book on lighting and rendering. Little did I know just how few my ideas were. The current edition of Digital Lighting and Rendering was released in early 2006 and looks to succeed the first edition, which came out in 2000 and has been used as a textbook in some computer arts classes. It adds newer techniques and ideas, such as sub-surface scattering, and some concepts, such as global illumination and ambient occlusion are expanded and placed throughout the book. The book is accessible for readers who have at least some experience with 3D software.

One of the first things I noticed about the book was there wasn't a CD with it. That's not a big thing to me, since I use Linux and Blender, most of the CD's that come with books are worthless to me, but I thought it was strange it didn't come with one. However, reading the book, it becomes apparent that this book is more about ideas. The text is specific enough to stick with lighting and rendering concepts, but is general enough to describe things that are common to most 3D programs. It isn't bound to any one software platform, but occasionally discusses the idiosyncrasies of some of the more popular 3D software. The author does have a website, and also has a monthly lighting and rendering contest hosted on CGSociety forums.

I give the book four out of five stars. Overall the book is an excellent reference, but since my bias is towards Blender, it misses the last star due the oversight of not mentioning that fine program.

When I bought this book, I was a 3D modeling newbie. I still am, but I am now a much better informed newbie. Information about lighting and rendering is accessible and thorough. Technical where it needs to be but also full of real world examples and illustrative images. The author does a wonderful job of explaining alternatives available in current modeling, animation, and rendering applications for the experienced, or budding 3D modeler to make intelligent decisions about how to best light a scene (based on the particular needs of the project) and solid information about how those lighting decisions impact rendering.

I read this book concurrent to a self-guided education of Blender (a popular, open source 3D design & animation package). This book is application-neutral and has gone a long way to helping me understand all of the settings and terminology in that application.

I've read this book cover-to-cover and will read it again. I am a digital artist of beginning to intermedaite skill and found the book very educational on the types of shaders common to most higher-end 3D applications, as well as types of lighting and the use and positioning of the lights in a digital set or scene. The book covers everything from mental ray type renders to HDRI, though it is not 3D application specific. I would highly recommend this book, even to a beginner in the digital arts; it is very informative, eplains many do's and dont's, and some of the errors that new or inexperienced artists make with their lighting and rendering. By far one of the best books I have read on the subject yet.

The wizards at Pixar Animation Studios practically invented this field, so it's not really surprising that the best book on lighting and rendering in 3D graphics comes from the accomplished Pixar lighting artist Jeremy Birn. This book goes above and beyond what you'd expect for a computer how-to book, and actually provides an education in the thought process behind lighting techniques and choices of algorithms.

It's written at a professional level, not dumbed-down with long descriptions of how to press each button, but at the same time it's very readable and easy to understand. This is not another book that re-explains the software manual, either, it goes into specifics on things like what exactly to look for in adjusting a sub-surface scattering shader, that could only come from an experienced master with years of film experience.

The illustrations and screenshots are great, full color and inspiring artwork throughout, with lots of before/after comparison images to drive home the point of every topic and technique. The Production Pipelines chapter could have been illustrated better, there were schematic diagrams of visual effects pipelines and feature animation pipelines, but that was the one section where more illustrations of each phase could have added. Outside that chapter, there were multiple images on almost every page.

The support from the author is excellent -- unprecedented in what I've seen -- he provides monthly lighting challenge scenes to download and light, and gives feedback and lighting advice on a forum where readers post their images and works in progress. Huge props for that level of support and communication with the readers!