Wednesday 9 April 2014

Lighting Project

Leading up to this project I was quite apprehensive as I had heard a  lot about CG lighting and all the problems that tend to come along with it. I was also very intrigued because I feel it is a very important skill to master as it can improve the look of your work incredibly.

We started by getting to grips with the lights and the material setting in Maya by creating a basic scene. We had to have one chrome, one glowing and one glass ball. We were given the environment and it was our job to add the relevant lights to the scene and manipulate the material settings to get the desired look.


Next we had to create studio lighting using mentalray to render rather then Maya software. We used our previous model of our hand as a subject to light. I found myself faffing around with this a lot because i just couldn't leave it alone. We had to use warm and cool tones while also making sure the whole model was lit and all the details were highlighted nicely. We also had to make sure there were no harsh shadows but shadows enough for definition. Its a case of changing small bits, rendering and changing a little again. I didnt think it would be as hard as it was and I have even more respect for people who can light a model well. I wish I could have spent longer on this, but I feel I learnt a lot and would be quicker next time. I see this being very useful for me when displaying any future work nicely.








Finally we had to add a GC object into a photo. We did this by using a chrome ball and taking RAW HDR images to capture the light of the scene. Using 3DS Max, we set up a camera for the scene and then took that camera into Maya so we could add our object into the scene. Then using Maya we used the HDR images to create a similar lighting set up to the lighting in the scene of the photo. Then it was up to us tweaking the settings and also editing in After Effects and Photoshop to make the object look as believable as possible in the scene.




I found this one quite challenging, mainly because of the shadows the plants cast. It took me a while to figure out how to cast the shadows onto the Dalek and make them match the shadows on the post it was seated on. I learnt a lot because of the challenges this brought up. I think if i were to go back I would perhaps make the Dalek model a different colour just to it isn't lost in the colour of the wall.





 After the Dalek I moved onto this shot with the nail varnishes. I wanted to do a very different shot with different lighting so I could learn different things with each photo. I found the shadows cast on the table hard to  replicate here. There were two light sources casting both warm and cool coloured shadows with a different harshness.

Over all I am happy with how both photos turned out. I don't think they were too bad for a first try and it sparked my interest at possibly doing some composting in the future.


Lighting is definitely something I want to practice and get better at. I feel this project really helped me understand lighting a lot more. It has made me want to go back and re-light all my old work to make it look pretty. I am definitely going to make sure I give myself the time to light my future projects properly to practice my lighting skills and make my work look more professional.

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