S1 Lighting
Let’s break it down like this:
Last modified on 2010-05-04 07:01:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Although the project is not finished, it’s breakdown time! This project is primarily based on lighting–where a lot of the energy and mood comes from. I will breakdown the layers (show individual pieces) through images and buildup (show their implementation) in a movie.
Diffuse Layer:
It all starts here, this layer is the textures that will be multiplied by the lights and imagery ahead.
Lights Layer:
The top image is the color information needed to multiply the image appropriately, while the two images following it are separated in Shake and used as masks to manipulate the lights.
Think of the top one as the wheels to a bike and the bottom two are the handlebars. The masks enable me to quickly split the lights up in Maya and quickly grab them again once brought into Shake.
Final Gather Fill:
This is just the final gather map by itself. Before I haven’t thought to use it isolated, but it actually proves useful to have your ‘bounce/fill’ by itself in compositing.
Specular + Reflection:
Since reflection is a property of specularity, this is rendered together. I also did a pass of specularity by itself for further adjustment later in the comp.
Shadows:
The shadow passes are reordered in Shake (R, G, B) to give a mask, and darkened and color corrected to create a shadow.
Occlusion:
I invert this to create a mask and darken/color correct that to create the contact shadow/light occlusion phenomenon.
These volume lights are created with mental ray physical lights in combination with a participating volume light. Further adjustment will be done on the final, but the technique is in place.
Synapse Mask:
A mask for the synapses to be able to manipulate them by themselves. Pretty simple.
Depth Pass:
I used a shader solution to create the z depth pass. The ‘find distance’ tool is used to measure the distance between a locator and the camera, which is fed into a shader applied to the objects. Basically, the locator acts as a ‘focus here’ for the shader, everything else gets varying levels of defocus.
Below is the buildup of the elements being applied. Download the full resolution mov here (6.1mb)
Bringing Specular Hits and Great Oldies
Last modified on 2010-05-04 06:42:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Lighting is starting to become a lot more productive. I’ve nailed down a look I want to go with (which is huge), and right now I’m really working on making that look work for my subject matter. It’s a fairly medical, surgical, sterile look, but I want to incorporate a bit in terms of rhythm and direction with the lighting. In addition to the synapses emitting a lot of light, the eye bot is lit differently from the rest of the scene (underlighting around the platform, top lit for the bot). I feel I could push the center visual interest further in a couple ways: Darken everything else a tad, brighten up the center, and introduce some variance in color from the rest of the scene.
Currently I’m working on having contrasted areas without dipping too far above white or too far below black (Cheers, lighters). The last image is a pass at the volumetrics/area surrounding the bot.
Lighting/Layer Test!
Last modified on 2010-04-27 03:31:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Here’s a test of combining the main layers together. Inevitably there will be more as they are needed, but this is a good start for looking at where to go from here. I need to split out the layers more (reflection and color need to be separate, having a separate specular is helpful), perhaps a depth blur, maybe separate the volumetrics, but this is mostly it.
Lighting and Rendering Test
Last modified on 2010-04-22 01:42:12 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I have tested the intended render pipeline for the project, and it works as expected. Further down the line I would like to test adding global illumination and saving a photon cache, but I am okay with the current results as an irradiance solution.
Before Final Gather:
After Final Gather, 30 minutes to render the map, 1 minute to render after the map has been made:
I do not expect huge issues with rendertimes. Carry on, mental ray.