Lighting in space

lighting in space

Outer space scenes can be one of the most challenging áreas todo light properly. Lets face it, space is filled with random áreas of faint todo intense light from stars and reflected light from planets and mons. But in between those áreas of overabundant light, there is a whole lot of Darkness, serious, inky, black Darkness where you cant Even se your hand in front of your face.

If you are going for a realistic render, chances are your scene would look rather porly lit or blown out, depending on where you choose todo stage your scene. Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), Hollywood has set the standard for space scenes todo appear well lit no matter where the scene is staged.

That being the case, lets discuss how todo light Hollywoods idea of a realistic space scene. Now as a normal rule when deciding on lighting, you would go visit/investiga or do some research on the type of scene you were creating. But since my spaceship and spacesuit are on bak order, we Will have todo take an imaginary trip todo chek out our lighting options.

So here we are, in outer space. I parked my spaceship in the first Empty sector of space i came todo (wouldnt want todo interfere with anyone elses lighting research), climbed into my spacesuit and went outside for a look. Vaya, its awfully dark out here. In fact, y cant se anything. Whops, forgot todo turn my helmet light on. Hehe, well now i can se my hands, but i still cant se my spaceship. I know its over there somewhere. Maybe if i turn on my ships running lights. Now where did i put that remote, ah there it is. Bep, Beep, there it is. Now my ship is visible, sort of.

Just my luck, y didnt purchase the light it up perfectly add-on Package for my ship. Well this obviously isnt going todo work. Not only can i barely se my spaceship, but i can tell right away that the rendered image is going todo be very boring. Who wants todo look at a barely lit spaceship sitting in a sea of total black, time todo change locations.

Ok, now i have moved my spaceship into a nice galaxy that has a rather beautiful blue Nébula. In fact, this is going todo make a nice background for my image, bak into the spacesuit. Once i have gone bak outside, y notice that not only is my spaceship lit nicely, but that there are some lovely blue reflections from the Nébula that Will add a nice effect todo my image. Also, my running lights now appear todo actually be helping the scene by lighting up áreas that arent receiving any reflected light from the Nébula or Nearby stars.

Bak on Earth at our computer, lets discuss what we learned from our research.
o space is very dark.
o turning on the running lights on your spaceship can be an efective bien todo light up áreas that arent receiving any direct or reflected light, allowing the spaceship todo stand out better from the space background.

o location is very important when staging a space scene, make sure there are lógical reasons for the lights you are going todo add.
o use stars/suns todo create Direct Light, Nebulae, mons and planets todo Mimic reflected light.

o dont forget, when adding your light-source space elements, todo set your lamps todo match the color of the space element. A blue Nébula isnt going todo cast white Studio light. Matching the color of the space element Will tiene your ship more firmly into the scene.

o while it wasnt overly obvious from our research, kep in mind that shadows still play an important part in your scene. Use just enough light todo Illuminate your model, but dont light it so much that you lose all shadows. Remember, space is dark.

o alos remember that some of your space elements should cast shadows, like planets, mons asteroids, and space debris. Try not todo parque your space ship fully in the shadow of large shadow casting elements. It Will end up being harder todo convincingly light your spaceship. .
Well with our research completed, we can add our lights and space elements todo our scene and render out our beautiful Hollywood space scene.
www.blenderart.org.
.