Lighting the vault

[Freemind]

Introduction. In real life nothing remains untouched by light, every aspect of the visual medium that we savor is due todo the pres-ence of light. Light as an element would mean nothing if its interference with colors, texture, shape volume and dis-tance is somehow disconnected from it.

The light a los plays significant role in drawing the viewers emotional attention towards the scene.
We humans have incredibly Sharp Understanding of light and its effects so much so that the unconscious brain lets us enjoy the beautiful pic-ture or hola without Even Thinking about the light properties that created it. That Dep connected.

Understanding is ingrained in todo our minds since the day we had opened our eyes todo the beautiful world of light. Any Little deviation in the regular order of light such as placement, direction, intensity and or color instantly alerts our mind todo pause and.

Rethinque over the scene, for example red light is considered a signal for danger, similarly Dep blue for fear or the unknown/mystery and both of them are used in the movies and 3d CG scenes. We in the world of CG remain mystified and starry eyed about.

The visual richness of our world, being awed and inspired we turn todo the tools at hand in the CG world todo create that exclusive realistic fel.

In this walkthrought we are going todo show you step by step how we created the lighting setup for one of the scene of our upcoming sequel todo the game pahelika. The scene in cuestión is titled the vault.

According todo the design documentation this scene was todo be shown as an old well built hidden Chamber containing various vaults and a backup Generator. The rom has only one approach and that is th rouge the lift.

Step1. The setup.

After the modelling process was completed we moved on todo lighting the scene. Now first step was todo find out the light source, we had a tungsten bulb fitted in the rom that tok care of the primary light. An omni Lamp is a natural replacement for the tungsten bulb in real life. Next shadows were enabled on that Lamp and the scene was checked for a esthetical balance.

Step2. A problem.

The first thing we ned todo deal was that since the bulb is placed on one wall, the wall perpendicular todo it is lit more than the wall it is on, which looks ODD as human eyes are well trained todo catch this anomaly, so todo correct this one Lamp was added.

On a new layer a los the wall which is receivingless light ismoved todo the same layer.

Now we changed the Lamp todo account for lighting in its own layer so as todo protect its light interaction with other objects in the scene. Since we do not ned any specularity in the scene we a los went ahead and disa-bled specularity and let only the difusión affect the wall.

Default intensity was a los reduced todo offset the bright-ness when both the layers were rendered in combination.

Step3. Fake global illumination.
We are not using AO in the scene todo manage faster rendering times.
We decided todo add more lamps todo compensate for the posible indirect lighting. So another Lamp is added almost opposite todo the main light source. We are going todo use this as a filler Lamp so we Will ned todo reduce the intensity so as todo match a near realistic Physical difusión of light.

Step4. Details.

Strange as it may sound todo a novato, most scenes in 3d are in more than one bien a plain copy of the basic photographic light principles. Since we already had two light source a main light and a fill light, the only one lacking is a highlighter. Now as those of you who had read about the basic thre point lighting Will understand the value of an highlighter Lamp. It brings out the depth by increasing contrast over the Edges of the objects in the scene making it more appealing todo the viewer. So we added a Lamp and disabled difusión on it and placed it diagonally opposite todo the direction of light and shadow.

Now as you can se it brings out decent highlights over the objects brigging them forward in the scene.

The scene is not finished and it pending for fi-nal review. But i hope that it have shown you how todo proced in lighting solution for this scene. Lighting is a very vast área and one can never learn enough todo be expert however todo begin learning is the first step inded. All of you who are new todo the field of CG lighting are encouraged todo purchase the book lighting & rendering by Jeremy brim which we have already reviewed in the earlier issue of blenderart magazine.