Nioma

Yap sesh: So it's been a while since I've posted, but this summer, I'm hitting a milestone in life, and I wanted to give back to the fandom that changed so much of mine. I wanted to encourage everyone to spread a little sunshine and give light to the creators who you think deserve all the love in the world!

Nominate the works that have touched your heart, made you laugh, made you cry, made you want to reach through the screen and strangle the author, or any work from the HL fandom that you really enjoyed.

I'll be giving away a fully rendered cover piece for your fanfiction as the grand prize. And, for those who participated and nominated, I'll also be giving away a companion prize of a portrait of your Hogwarts Legacy MC -- or any character from the game (or Potterverse!) that you like.

Draw will happen on July 25, 2026, ~2PM UTC. For transparency, i'll be uploading the video of the prize draw here on the same day!

Step One: Change the weather to clear Skipping this step could result in clouds blocking proper lighting and the potential of you getting rained on and unable to get the rain spots out of the clothes, ruining your photos. It's a good habit to get in while taking outside shots.

Step Two: Change the time of day You don't have to adjust it to exactly where I put it, but mess around with it to get your wanted daylight. It depends on your location and where you are standing.

Step Three: Optional (Somewhat) Post processing You can mess around with the White Balance to make your photos warmer/colder, for daylight shots I prefer warm. Auto Exposure just makes the screen brighter, so if you were in daylight that was not as bright as the photo, you can somewhat fake the amount of brightness that's actually outside. I just have it a smidge up in this photo. And turning off the Vignette just looks better for bright photos.

Step Four: Turn on the Spotlight Can't have a lighting tutorial without it.

Step Five: Crank up Intensity Sometimes both don't need to be all the way up, but in this instance and most, they need to be otherwise the light WILL NOT show up. The outside brightness is brighter than the default spotlight setting so you will need to turn it up.

Step Six: Edit your spotlight Turn off the shadows, as it kind of defeats the purpose of this tutorial & change your channel lighting from channel 0 to channel 1. This allows the lighting to be more direct on your MC's face.

Step Seven: Attach your light to the camera You can do this by clicking that little camera icon that the arrow is coming from that I totally forgot to circle. Make sure your camera is on when you do this so you don't accidentally control your mc instead of the camera. Then, position the light directly on your MC's face as needed. If you would like more of these spotlights, simply hit the copy button that's right next to the camera button and also move those to the MC's face as needed.

Before & After:

In different lighting: (With auto exposure off. In this lighting, the surrounding is too dark and with the setting I had it on, the auto exposure will turn the screen white. Though you can adjust it to make it work if needed)