Luxology, one independent technology company in charge of developing next-gen 3D content creation software, has just introduced a new Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit (SLIK), one that was designed by Yazan Malkosh, an extended collection of presets, scenes, items, materials and video tutorials that will aid users to better light their CG creations, whether those are cars, buildings or people.

I still remember back in the day when I worked in the 3D modeling branch, what a joy (wish you could hear the sarcasm while I pronounced "joy") it was to light various sceneries or vehicles. What is worse is that I was usually resuming to a silly sky light and a few orbs around to give some highlights, so my modeling was quite in vain and wasn't of any use to my portfolio, since poor lighting is bad for good modeling.

"CG artists and designers often spend a fair amount of time refining lighting solutions to bring out the best in their models," said Brad Peebler, president of Luxology. "With SLIK, artists are easily able to bring the realism of a studio shoot into a CG-based production and create amazing 3D renderings that are vivid and believable."

The kit unveiled by Luxology comes complete with realistic models of lights, tripods, booms, cameras, reflectors and platform backdrops, and (from what I saw on their web page) virtually any piece of equipment one would find in a professional photography studio. Considering that, for the price of $125, this is worth each and every little cent, especially since it can improve your presentations a lot.

Another target for this kit, one that seems the company missed in detailing, is amateur photographers, or maybe Luxology will launch a photo-oriented version of this. I say it's good for amateur photographers that also want to learn studio lighting because the price of an external flash is around the tag of this, not to think about what all of the equipment simulated in the kit would cost.


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