How can i render realistic fabric lighting in digital painting?

[Oliver_S]

I’ve been trying to get better at painting realistic fabric in my digital work, but I keep hitting a wall with how light interacts with different folds. My latest attempt at a draped velvet cloak just looks flat and plastic, not soft and dimensional. I’m not sure if it’s my brush settings, my approach to the subsurface scattering, or if I’m just missing something fundamental about the texture.

[NathanIH]

I feel that. It can go flat fast. I painted a velvet cloak last month. The problem wasn't the brush; it was that the light was washing everything evenly. I started paying attention to the pile direction: along the fold, the fabric catches light in a skewed way. I tried layering with small, cool shadows inside the folds and warm highlights on the raised edges. It helped a little, but sometimes the highlights still felt too crisp or the shadows too muddy. It’s like the light wanted to bounce less and it read plastic.

[SofiaM]

Direct lighting makes the biggest difference for me. A single light source blurs into a single value; the folds disappear. Add a rim light or a second light from the opposite side and suddenly the creases have a logic. Subsurface scattering is subtle; you mostly fake it with softer shadows and warmer midtones.

[JonathanJ]

I tried a texture brush that mimics tiny fiber specks, then overlaid brighter strokes along the folds. Sometimes it looked lush; other times it looked like fake hair. I realized I was balancing between too much contrast and too much blur. If I step back, I see I was chasing a universal rule that doesn't exist for every part of the cloak.

[Donald81]

Do you think the real issue is the lighting setup rather than the material look itself?