How to Light Hard Surface Assets in Toolbag

Additionally, you can check where your pivot points are set, separate your mesh into multiple objects, and use parenting to modify them later in the Toolbag scene.

In this example, I’m ensuring I can open and rotate the cylinder so it’s logically linked, similar to real life.

Scene Setup

Now it’s time to import our model along with its textures. To import the model, use the shortcut Ctrl+I or drag and drop the 3D file into Toolbag. To set up materials, go to the Materials tab and hit the + icon to create a new material. Alternatively, you can drag and drop materials with proper naming conventions (i.e _.albedo, _normal, _roughness) onto a material sphere, and the texture map slots will auto-fill accordingly. After applying the material to your asset, you can set up some cameras.

Camera Setup

To set up camera shots, I recommend gathering images and setting up a mood board of similar assets to help spark inspiration. This is also a good stage for iteration and experimentation.

Now onto the Camera settings. I always use a low Field of View value range of around 20 – 25 to create a semi-orthographic shot that captures most of the asset. In the Post Effect setting, I tend to select Hejl as the Tone Mapping method with an Exposure value of around 2.4 – 2.6.

To view your final composition, you can set your desired resolution in the Render object and enable the Safe Frame option in Camera > Lens. Finally, enable Use Ray Tracing, Advanced Light Sampling, and set your Bounces to 2-3 bounces in the Render object.

Light Setup

Note: Before starting to light your model, I suggest reading my other tutorial, “Lighting and Rendering Guns in Toolbag.” In this article, I’ve explained how I create my lighting using the HDRI/Skylight editor.

When it comes to lighting, I always start with the rim light, which is useful for making your model stand out from the background with a defined silhouette. I used a Directional Light with a small diameter and a high intensity to create a sharp contour around some areas. I used another Directional Light in some other areas with a larger diameter to create gradients over the edges

Then I place my key light, which will be the dominant light source in the scene. I used a Directional Light with a Rectangle for the Area/Shape and a brightness intensity of around 4-5. I angled my light source better to display the reflections on the side of the weapon. I pick an angle for the key light placement that shows off the rough and glossy details. In this case, the key light was slightly angled instead of shining directly from my camera perspective onto my weapon. This helped show the surface imperfections.

After placing the key light, it’s time to brighten up the rest of the dark areas. For this, I used a few fill lights, which were less intense than the key light but had a larger diameter. I used a less intense Directional light with a small diameter for fill lights to brighten up the scene.

I’ve also placed an overhead and bottom light to highlight feature areas like the Picatinny rail and cylinder with different light intensities. I used another Directional light for both lights and changed the Area/Shape to a Rectangle with an exaggerated amount for width and height and a low intensity for Brightness. This creates a large, filled-out light that should cover the model to complement the other lights in the scene.

Our goal with this is to give our shapes better readability. I recommend switching your light shape to control the X and Y- axes of your light source size. This gives us another possibility of light source geometry which can be manipulated in two dimensions instead of the diameter.

As a suggestion, watch for effective plane changes when lighting your asset. This makes it easier to read and emphasizes its features for the viewer. To give you an idea, look at the example below. The area where a plane change occurs in the first render appears rather flat, making the shape seem two-dimensional and difficult to interpret. A successful plane change should clearly visualize your object’s shape, distinctly showing the differences between various levels or planes.

Using Sky Lights

After lighting my scene, I always set my Sky object to a low Brightness setting of around 0.2 – 0.5 to create more information in our reflections, like colors, gradients, and shapes, while also making it more lively. This can also help brighten up areas that could not receive light from Directional and Spot Lights. I exaggerated the HDRI value in this example to make the changes more visible.

Setting Up Your Final Render

Raytracing Settings

Now it’s time to create our final renders. To do so, we’ll work with the Render object. We have a few options to tweak in the Lighting section, such as Direct/Indirect Radiance Clamp sliders and Diffuse/Reflection Intensity of the indirect lighting. I recommend experimenting with these options to see what feels good for your render. However, the standard settings are typically good enough.

The next important settings are the Samples and Denoise in the Output tab. We can choose how many render samples per pixel we want with Samples. The higher the samples, the longer it takes to render, which will improve render quality. In my case, I went with 2048 Samples.

The Denoise setting offers both CPU denoising and real-time GPU denoising. When using GPU Denoise, you can expect a smoother ray tracing experience and the ability to navigate your scene without visual artifacts and performance disruptions. CPU Denoising usually provides great render quality using a few samples and works well with fine detail and alpha-blended materials.

In my case, I went with CPU Denoise, set the Quality to High and the Denoise Strength to 0.3. Be careful with the value for Denoise Strength, as you can crunch the details in your texture. Overall, if you go with a high sample count, you should choose a lower denoise strength value; with a lower sample, you should go for a higher denoise strength value.

Output Settings

When satisfied with the results, choose your Output Path, where your rendering should be saved. Ensure your Resolution is high enough, and remember to enable Transparency if needed.

Render Passes & Cameras

You also have the opportunity to create Render Passes like Alpha Mask, Depth, Normals, etc., and render out Material Values such as albedo, roughness, and more. This is handy if you want to composite renders in Adobe Photoshop and fine-tune your rendering. If you use multiple cameras, you could add them to the Render Cameras tab to render everything in one go. I recommend creating a 4K render because having a high-resolution render on hand is always nice. If you have Artstation Pro, you can upload 4K pictures to your portfolio.

Post-Processing

Time to polish up our renders. I’m mainly using the Filter > Camera Raw Filter in Photoshop for this. I usually adjust settings like Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze, and I use the masking feature to mask out areas and edit exposure, contrast, etc.

Another cool trick is to lay a simple black-to-white linear gradient layer with its Blending set to Overlay and low opacity to create a focal area in your render. For this asset, I used a gradient along the barrel to make the front of the weapon brighter than the rest.

Since I created this asset, Toolbag has been upgraded with a complete set of post-processing sliders in Post Effects, including Highlights, Midtones, Shadows, and Clarity. This will make creating my final touches easier and quicker by allowing me to stay in the same app.

Creating an Environment for Storytelling

I recommend creating a scene for your asset to make it look more complex and complete. You can also use the environment to tell a story about the model you want to showcase.

There are some libraries where you can get downloadable models or textures, such as Toolbag’s integrated Library, Megascans, Poliigon, and Substance Source. But make sure that your model gets the main spotlight of your render. In addition, I would recommend choosing an environment that contrasts your asset. For example, this weapon is mostly metal, which looks great against a stone (or maybe on a cloth) environment. This highlights the materials of our asset and makes it stand out more.

Conclusion

The most important aspect of lighting is that you showcase your model so that every part (shape, material properties, etc.) is understandable to the viewer and leaves them without questions.

I hope this tutorial helped you to understand my lighting process. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at contact@emre-karabacak.com