During Week 10 of our Animated Narratives module, I made progress on our animation by working on the lighting for our 3D animation project. My goal was to use lighting that made sense with the environment, whilst avoiding hard shadows in individual shots.
Firstly, to help emphasise the lighting in certain parts of the room, I first added a cube mesh in the background’s window and added an emission surface to its material to give the impression of a bright light that completely reflects off the glass, allowing for an easy method to cover up the outside of the room without needing to model or draw an exterior.
Secondly, I had also debated on how to simulate more emphasised shadow for the basement to add an impression of a larger, unknown threat. This would prove difficult however as we have not been taught any way to add artificial shadows.
However, I did remember a previs tutorial where depth had been added by using a plane with an array modifier and the correct material settings to give an impression of shadow further away from the camera, hence I decided to use the same technique which gave pretty good results, as seen below. The only issue with it being that it will need to be changed for proper lighting for our final shot as it is just a set of translucent planes.
As for using actual lights in our environment, I placed lights based on where the actual sources are in the room, adding additional sources as well for more realistic looking light and shadow, as seen below with the lights.
Furthermore, I had also added additional lights that have been keyframed for my shots, this was done to reduce harsher shadows, draw the viewer’s eye easier and adding rim lights for more depth. This can be seen below with viewport renders of important frames in my shots.
-Screenshot of my full lighting set up so far
