In the 3d world, you models and environments are only as good as your presentation. If your renders come out looking rushed or quickly put together, people will know. Putting more focus on lighting can make all the difference in a scene. Below are a couple of examples of different lighting tests. They were all rendered with Mental Ray, some using the physical sun, while others combined that with additional lights.


Physical Sun


Physical Sun + Green Spot Light


3 Spot Lights


Physical Sun + 2 Spot Lights

While I enjoy creating realistic environments and objects in 3D, cel-shading plays its own role in the 3D world as well. If you ever want to do anything 2D related with 3D objects, cel-shading is one way to help composite the two. Here are a few examples of how cel-shading can make 3D objects effective in a 2D world.