Lighting Basics: 3 Point Lighting By Neil Blevins Created On: July 11th 2025 Updated On: Oct 29th 2025 Software: Any
A 3 point lighting setup is a technique for lighting a scene or subject
using 3 lights in a specific configuration. Once you've mastered
this lighting setup you can experiment with more advanced lighting, but
this setup should give you a baseline which gives you decent results
with the least amount of work.
You have two choices with this lesson, watch me discuss the issue in
the video below, or read the full text.
Camera Lights
A lot of bad lighting happens because people place a big strong light
right in front of the subject. (Character model from
Andy Goralczyk & Nacho Conesa at Blender.org) This is often refered
to as "Camera
Lights", since the light comes from the same or almost the same
position as your camera.
"Camera Lights" are best avoided except in very specific situations, as
they make the subject appear boring and flat. Ideally what we'd like
for our lighting setup is for the subject to
appear dimensional, you can see detail, it appears to be round instead
of flat, you have areas that are bright and areas that are in shadow.
Here's a 3 point lighting setup on a sphere. Notice the brighter side,
the darker side, and the edge in the darker area that's brighter. If
you've ever taken a traditional drawing class, you may have shaded a
similar sphere. Basically, a core shadow gives an object
dimensionality, regardless of whether you're drawing or painting in 2d
or lighting in 3d.
Here's a similar 3 point lighting setup on our cg test head. I would
hope you agree this looks far better than Camera Lights.
Standard 3 Point Lighting Setup
Now lets discuss the lights. A basic 3 point lighting setup is
generally used indoors, and has a "Key Light", a "Fill Light" and a
"Kicker".
The Key Light is the main light source, usually just off to the
side
The Fill Light is to make sure the shadowed areas don't get too
dark, opposite side from the Key
The Kicker is placed almost behind the subject, which usually
creates this bright rim and is used to visually seperate the object
from
the background.
Here's the placement of the lights.
Key:
Brightness: Strong
Position: Placed at a 45
degree angle to the camera and slightly above the subject.
Size: Medium
Fill:
Brightness: Low
Position: Opposite side of the subject from the Key at a
45 degree angle and slightly below the subject
Size: Large
Kicker
Brightness: Strong
Position: Almost behind the subject on the same side
as the fill
Size: Medium
And here once again are the results.
Lights By Many Names
Many of these lights go by many names.
A Fill Light can sometimes also be refered to as "Ambient Light", "Sky
Light", or "Bounce Light". This isn't exactly correct, these are
actually specific light types that can provide fill light to your
scene...
A Sky Light / Dome Light is light that comes from the atmosphere
in the sky
A Bounce Light is soft light that bounces off of another object.
Like light that comes from the sun, hits the ground, and bounces up
towards the underside of an object.
Ambient Light is any low intensity light that comes from the
environment.
All of these lights can act as a Fill Light, to "fill" in the shadow
area of the subject with some soft light, but you can also produce fill
light as explained above with a large soft low intensity direct light
source (such as a photographer's softbox).
A Kicker Light is sometimes called a "Back Light" or a "Rim Light".
This is because you want the light to illuminate the edge of the object
("rim") so it "kicks" the object away from the background, which is
done by placing the light "back" behind the object.
3 Point Lighting Variation
Here's a variation of the setup that I use all the time for outdoors
which has only 2
lights.
The Key Light represents your sun
The Fill Light is created using a Sky Light. It shines from all
directions, and adds very soft shadows.
Here's the placement of the lights.
Key:
Brightness: Strong
Position: Placed at a 45
degree angle to the camera and slightly above the subject.
Size: Small
Sky:
Brightness: Medium
Position: Centered on Scene
Size: Infinite
The Same Procedure in 2D as 3D
While it's easier to make a 3 point lighting setup in 3d, since you can
position your lights around in 3d space, remember the exact same thing
applies to a 2d painting. Dimensionality requires both shadow and
light, it doesn't matter whether you're in 3d or 2d. In fact, when
painting, I'll frequently place on a blank layer a little icon to
represent the direction of my key light so it reminds mas I paint.
Conclusion
So remember, avoid that "Camera Lights" look by trying a traditional 3
point lighting setup, it will give you good results quickly and keep
your subject looking more dimensional.
