How to Render: The Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity

by Scott Robertson

This book is about the fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity; the focus is firmly on helping to improve visual understanding of the world around and on techniques for representing that world. Rendering is the next step after drawing to communicate ideas more clearly. Building on what Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling wrote about in How To Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination, this book shares everything the two experts know about how to render light, shadow and reflective surfaces. This book is divided into two major the first explains the physics of light and shadow. One will learn how to construct proper shadows in perspective and how to apply the correct values to those surfaces. The second section focuses on the physics of reflectivity and how to render a wide range of materials utilizing this knowledge. Throughout the book, two icons appear that indicate either “observation” or “action.” This means the page or section is about observing reality or taking action by applying the knowledge and following the steps in creating your own work. Similar to our previous book, How To Draw, this book contains links to free online rendering tutorials that can be accessed via the URL list or through the H2Re app.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Design, Reference, Art Design

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2012

Reviews

[Natik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This looks like the only mass market book on the subject so it's also the best! The section on curved reflections, the Fresnel effect, and general shading are pretty rigorous (though the shading needs more rigor). Unfortunately it's geared toward digital artists so they speak of various photoshop effects instead of paint pigments. The second half of the book is basically random stock photos for some reason.

If you want to teach yourself the subject, I'd pair this book with "Presentation Techniques" by Dick Powell, which is really for industrial designers but it has extra info on reflectivity. I'd also look up the website "huevaluechroma.com" by David Briggs, which has the shading info with a proper level of rigor (although also unfortunately biased towards digital artists)

[Shaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very in depth book on how to make forms look 3D and how to render different materials and reflection. I would recommend this to beginners even if it is a bit complex because it will give you some info on the "science" of drawing/painting and demystify things a bit for you.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is actually not available. The book I read was called How to Render the Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity. I believe it is a later edition of the book above. It's fabulous. It really gives information that I haven't seen elsewhere. It goes beyond the usual highlight, core shadow, reflected light, etc. And it talks about passive highights and reflections and how to know/understand where to place them, how to plot cast shadows in perspective, etc. And it then deals with rendering those things on various surfaces such as chrome or matte, metallic, scratched, etc. This is done with great and thorough refinement and really makes it possible to understand e.g. the Fresnel effect and what happens to reflections on concave surface, etc. It's quite technical. It was a hard read for me. And it's 260+ pages. But I persisted and it's totally worth it. It's geared to very highend realism for vehicles and space and monster illustrations--and much of the info is for digital rendering. But the info is incredibly useful for any kind of illustration IMO. I'm glad I read it. And I will keep it by my work table. And I'm thankful to have such a book so packed with real information. Very excellent.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the bible for people wanting to up their digital painting/ rendering abilities. Ive improved so so much just from a quick pass through first read. Gonna start going over it again and coming through it soon.

[Megangoldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The space between us feels like a promise waiting to be fulfilled. Shall we make it happen, one delicious moment at a time?

[Dooz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. However, you won't get far without the knowledge from the author's previous "How to Draw" book. You'll need to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals before tackling this bad boy.

[J-P Nihtinen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have