Light

Upstanding light is important when producing images in either 2D or 3D. The idea of understanding light is to know where light sources are, they strength/density and importantly, where they reflect, illuminating other parts of an environment/characters.

I have selected two images to analyse the light within them. One image is pure artificial light and the other is lit up from natural light.

Natural Light Image: Mass Effect 2

This scene is lit up by a natural light being a sun. It gives off a bright light, shining down on the ruined city in the background and the three character's in the foreground. Other light sources are given off by Commander Shepard's (N7 armour) assault rifle, in front of the other two character's.

Natural sunlight (green), shines down on the landscape and characters from the top right of the image. It illuminates everything in the foreground and the buildings closest to the characters in the background. The main areas in which the light is strongest are the brightest. That natural light is then reflected (red) from the brighter surfaces to surfaces left of Shepard's armour and then onto the other characters.

Man made light (blue) is only produced from one source: Shepard's assault rifle and reflects onto his hand. Some of the light also reflects around its original source. As the mans gloves are a dark shade, they absorb most of the light shining down, therefore reducing the lights reflective capabilities.

The second image I analysed is lit up by artificial light, in this case being a spot light.

 The Iron Man model has been lit up purely by one spot light (yellow), shining  onto the model, from a 160 degree angle, lighting up the top of the head, chest and the models quads.
Other light sources (blue) are coming from Iron Mans eyes, chest and hands, all directed into the black surrounding, to set the figure as the center of attention in this image. The black surrounding is also effective in this case as black is a colour which doesn't reflect light. Instead it absorbs it.
Light bounces (orange) from the spot light and the figures light. Spot light reflections, light up either side of the face below the eyes from the light below the neck, areas below the chest are lit up from the legs shine.
Other reflections (the arms) are lit up from light reflecting off the torso, and streaks of light getting through the initial model around the edges.