Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 18, 2016. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Normally, lighting in MODO has to be built from scratch for high-quality renderings. Getting the best out of CG models therefore requires a great deal of time. SLIK makes it quick and easy to assemble studio-lighting set-ups based on lighting situations from real-world photography. They give rendered CG work more realism and help complete the job in a shorter time.
The SLIK 2 kit contains:
- 15 Base Assembly Presets
- 20 Lighting Setups covering small-, medium- and large-scale projects, as well as Portrait Studio Photography
- 20 HDR Environment Maps at 2K resolution
- 34 Lighting Textures at 4K resolution
- 12 Material Presets
- Instruction Videos
- Guided Manual
The Lighting Assembly Presets at the core of the kit use luminous polygons, lights and IES light files that can be downloaded free of charge from the Light Bulb Manufacturing or The Foundry Community Asset website. They provide a realistic lighting pattern and drastically increase the authenticity of a render. The lighting can be refined using controls in the viewport, and users receive direct feedback on their changes. A scene can be lit in a similar way to how a traditional photographer would work in a studio. In addition, it is possible to specify where highlights should appear on the object or where the light should fall.
Image-based lighting is achieved quickly with the Studio Presets: simply load one, render out a custom HDR panorama and then replace the studio lighting with the HDR. Or use one of the existing HDRs together with the Studio Lighting Preset, adjust it and bake it back to HDR.
Version 2 of SLIK naturally also has new features. They are:
- Intuitive, automatic Lightboard Controller for light-targeting processes
- 34 new 4K Light Textures Studio Save Feature
- HDR Bake feature
- SLIK HDR Studio Swap
- Automatic Render Pass with recolouring
- Automatic Composition Script using Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 or Adobe After Effects CC 2015
- Single-Click Preference System
- Updated lights and presets
- New Smart Material Library
- Material Override for quick lighting tests
- Physical Sun Preset System
- Custom Preset Save Feature
- The ability to remove tripod/secondary meshes from the view
- Performance-optimised SLIK 2 assemblies and options
If you order SLIK 2 by February 18, you will receive a 20-percent discount. SLIK 2 for MODO has a promotional price of 109 euros plus VAT. The SLIK 2 update from SLIK costs 86.50 euros plus VAT at the promotional price.
You can enquire about SLIK 2 from maconcept here.
