"The Challenge"

Creating a believable 3D image using nothing more then one object, one image, and one light.

The image. The shot of the great looking Europian door was taken off a web site somewhere, but it had a sign leaning against the left side of the opening. I used Photoshop to remove the sign.

The object. I started with a single polygon. Then I made a second polygon the shape of the opening. I combined the two shapes into one. Then I used "smoothshift" several times to recess the opening and give it that 3D look.

The Lighting. I only used a single overall light, but added a couple tricks. If you look really close at the picture, you'll notice I flipped it so that the shadow is now on the left. Then I placed my light to the left of the object. I also added a blue hue to the light to make more dramatic in the final render.

"Projecting an Image"

Creating some dramatic lighting with a single spot light.

Projecting an image with a spot light is a quick and easy way to add dramatic lighting or more detail to your scene. In the scene here we are tricking the viewer into believing there is a large stained glass window on the wall across from the chair.

Actually it is a single spot light with an image. We down loaded the image of the window off the net. We then used Photoshop to black out all the surrounding area.

Under the spot lights properties panel we clicked on "Projection Image" and loaded our photo of the stained glass window.

A simple, easy way to add more, with less work.