this is so awesome, i will watch all the lessons
i’m having a little trouble to have the best illumination on my archviz and achieve something i really like
For sure this sessions going to help me alot! thanks
these tutorials are freaking amazing. You’re very detailed and explain what you’re doing and don’t auto assume the person watching knows all the options and what they do etc. I am saving these lists and subbing. Amazing work man the stuff you cover just in 1 Part 1 and 2 are more in depth then videos/dvds I have order or had to have some sort of subscription and you’re posting it for nothing for community. This should be featured I think in all honesty. Amazing work man.
Awesome work !
I watched only 2 videos for now and there is already tons of useful information & tricks.
I hope you will keep update your youtube channel !
Thanks so much for sharing, these are extremely helpful. Nice to see so many features covered in practice, how so many pieces of the puzzle fit together.
And really illuminating to see the thought process of an experienced pro at work.
Do you have a tip jar? 
I hope this isn’t out of place, but as an aside, for any other amateurs like myself out there wanting to improve their lighting artistry, I’ve found it invaluable to study the techniques and motivations of some of your favorite cinematographers, such as this brief glimpse into the work of Roger Deakins:
Even the greats “cheat” at lighting – don’t be reluctant to go a little above and beyond for dramatic or stylistic effect…
Hey man!
I have to admit I already like what I see a looot! 
What is it that you are not yet happy with? On the other side, I am not sure yet if I will work on scenes for VR though since those have totally different target specs and feature sets. But we can stay in contact and see
Cheers!
Hey man, thanks for sharing this!
I have to say though that this project would need some more work done first before I could look at it, since I believe it is not yet in a state where it would really benefit from me going over it. Its really hard for me to work on very basic or unfinished scenes since I need certain things to be there for me to do my work.
Your project looks like you are in a fairly early concept stage, so making it look really good with lighting only is almost impossible right now.
I hope this is okay for you as it by no means is meant in a rude way. But looking at the video you shared, its just not yet enough. Keep pushing for it and we could potentially have a look at it later. However, one thing to notice as well is: I am always gonna look out for scenes that in my opinion have the most educational value as well.
So please, to everyone, dont feel mad if I decide to not work on your scene! I get quite a lot of submissions and have to carefully evaluate on which ones I will work.
Thanks again and cheers! 
Hey guys,
I just finished the next part for Session 2 this weekend, so here you go! Hope you guys like it
Cheers!
Just finished watching it. You are insanely knowledgeable. First you blow me away with that ice subsurface material and then you knock it out of the park with adding some subtle tessellation on the tubes material. And that’s not even mentioning how you treated the water material. While I can’t apply any of this directly to my project, just learning about all of this along with everything else you have covered is just priceless. I cannot thank you enough for what you’re doing and I am having more fun with each new video. Thank you and please keep em coming.
Hey Tilman (Wisam here), a question for a complete amateur when it comes down to lighting.
Where do one start?
for ex. if i block out my scene in UE4, i also would love to start with a block out light.
But, which actors do one use? Directional light for the sun, Skylight makes shadowed areas lighter? Using Lightmass direct or after i start to UVW things? Is Lightmass only worth it when using static light?
the reason for my questions is because i’m in the “Ancient” competition over att Artstation, tomorrow i’m starting my blockout, but i’d love to have a blockout light at that. Is it to early to think about it?
Thank you! And love your videos!
Hey man!
Well, to answer your question, Lightmass IS static lighting. So there is no difference in Unreal. Static Lighting=Lightmass.
Actually, I believe it doesnt really make a difference! I normally use the lighting method that I will use in the end as well, but thats personal preference.
You can use a movable directional light and a movable skylight. Note that you wont get shadowing from that skylight until you turn on distance fields.
What you can do though, and what I and others have been doing as well is export your blockout stuff with simple and quick box mappings or flatten mappings applied. This way Unreal can still turn those into Lightmap UVs and you can work with Lightmass even in the Blockout phase.
I have been working on a new environment with some friends and we heavily use lightmass during the blockout phase and make sure all whitebox meshes have at least some quick UVs to work with. Also, this approach can give you a better impression of the direction you are going to even in those early stages. So yeah…I am actually a big fan of having everything set up in a working way right from the beginning. Makes things a lot easier down the line
This is an example of what this can look like (with Lightmass), its heavy WIP and everything you see is just whitebox placeholder stuff:
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/922/lg18CY.png
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/923/dozDPA.jpg
Cheers!
Thank you, blocking out my shapes in UE4, so i’ll be working with the base light direct! =)
Great tutorials thanks. I’ve been trying for a while now to get good sunny daytime lighting with minimal post processing or other tricks. It seems the engine doesn’t produce good results out of the box if you compare it to games like gta v for example.
Thanks man!
Iam Not Sure though if I understand you correctly. What you see when playing GTA is not the Out of the Box result. Its carefully craftet over 4 to 6 years with hundrets of people. It uses very specific solutions that require hours of timeconsuming tweaking and Set up Work and relies heavily on Post processing as well.
I think it’s really easy to underestimate the Power of Unreal 4 if you haven’t worked with another in house Engine. Most of the Times, These Tools are Not that great and its actually quite hard to get good Results. It takes a lot of sweat and tears
Cheers!
I would love to see an indoor level done sometime in the future with no directional light and everything lit by stationary point and spot lights. I think my biggest problem right now is that I feel light bounces don’t fill up areas with light well enough. Like, in the real world, a single light in a closet that shines through a crack in the door will light up a darkened bedroom. But in the engine even with 100 light bounces and the range set high it wont do this.
I guess this is compounded by the fact we are doing a VR game and cannot use any post processing 
.
Well, again…it all depends on the content I get from the community^^ So I cant say for sure, but I totally could Also, in regards to post processing…you cant even use exposure controls in VR? That seems new to me. I think you definitely need to look at proper exposure settings instead of cranking up the lights or bounces.
Another thing regarding the next videos…I am really sorry, but I was super busy and I could not record a new video last weekend! However, I will have a lot of time this saturday, so my plan is to record a double session on saturday and hopefully even finish up this environment so I can start looking at new stuff in the coming weeks.
Please stay tuned and sorry for the delay!
Cheers
We are anxiously waiting 
Hi,
thanx for reply, cause i think a lot of people wants to get in contact with you. Contacted you in youtube as well… “creatiVRstudio” is the name there… can´t change it here.
I like the lights in my scene but a lot of details get lost. So i need a nightscene where you “feel” it is a fullmoon night and see details on ground and trees. If you go to the woods on such a night, you will see more of the surroundings then in my picture i guess.
I do try to get more light in the scene right now, will post an update. So this is not realy for VR renderings it is just the 360° output from unrealengine. The only limit is some postprocess fx that wont work with the 360° output pictures, but 90% is used like you do normaly.
Let´s stay in contact and i will learn more from your other videos… 10 hours watching now, makes me believe i am better now then before.
You can watch a WIP at youtube:
Martin.
Ah cool man! The video looks neat! Out of the box, I only see some minor issues When the elf is running around, I think it looks great already and the environment seems pretty readable. However, when looking at the shot where he sits on the fire, shadows are very black and there is the lack of definition that you described in your post as well.
There could be 2 things to check out:
- Make sure you are using an exposure setting that fits a dark night. I would recommend a min brightness of 0.1 and a max brightness of 1 to get things started. This will most likely change the look quite drastically depending on where your settings are right now. If you are doing this first, make sure to adjust all values afterwards on the directional light and skylight to make this work again (also local lights and emissive values need to support this).
- Brighten up the sky lighting. Ideally increase its intensity or choose a specific cubemap that gives you more definition. This will help to get more definition in shadowed areas.
Try that out and let me know how things go
Hey @ - awesome videos man, the end results are amazing.
That being said, before I sink all these hours into them I’d like to know if there’s anything really in there for those of us who don’t care about lightmass and only work with dynamic lighting?
Hey man, thank you so much!
Regarding your question…The first session uses dynamic lighting for the night setup and Lightmass for the day one. So if you are interested, you could give the first 4 (I believe) videos a shot