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06/09/2010 10:46:48

toonaramaMuvizu mogulExperimental user
toonarama
Posts: 661 		Hello there
One of the main things that marksout the better looking animations from the others is "lighting".
I know that this is covered in tutorials but I think it would be an idea to have a tutorial related to achieving certain lighting "effects".
Sunny day, sunset, stormy day, film noir etc etc.
thanks
Toonarama
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06/09/2010 12:00:02

barrys
barrys
Posts: 102 		Hi toonarama

You're right - lighting can make or break your animations. I'm going to ask Alex (in-house lighting chap) for his advice. He built and lit the pre-made spooky and western sets.

Anyway, I'm not going to tell you how to achieve daylight, sunsets etc. Instead I'm going to offer some lighting guidelines that may help your video pop out:

DO SOMETHING
First, do light your scene. Don't leave it as default white set. Attempt something. This seems an obvious rule but you'd be surprised how many animations are just plain white

SIMPLE
Most successful lighting setups are simple. They attempt to set an overall ambient colour and only use one or two localised lights to highlight objects or characters. If you start to add numerous lights then they will start affecting each other; shadows will be indistinct, colours will mix and your effect will generally be diluted away.

HAVE A COLOUR THEORY
OK, so we know that there are rules about colours that go together and colours that don't. These rules are what great artists know intuitively. For the rest of us there are no end of helpful websites about colour theory, the merits of certain colour schemes and how to achieve mood with lighting. When you start to light a scene have an overall 'colour aim'. Your aim may be to induce a feeling of heat, warmth, isolation, coziness, horror, etc. This will influence your Environment lighting choice

DECIDE ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT
After establishing your overall aim the next job for lighting to do is illuminate what's important in your set. This is usually a character or location. Use point- or spot-lights to bring these subjects out from your background colour.

OBJECT COLOUR
Lighting is only part of the secret. You can colour, or skew the colour, of objects in your set so that they contribute to the feeling you're trying to get across. A good example of this is the Matrix films. They all have a greenish tint which, admittedly is done in post-production, but lighting choice and prop colours all reinforce this green tint. You'll never see a bright red post-box in a Matrix film - it will be a dirty brown or orange - because this wouldn't suit the lighting.

A MILLION OTHER TIPS
Maybe I'm talking crap with all of the above. Here are some people who DO know what they are talking about along with some helpful sites:
http://kuler.adobe.com/
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm
http://colorschemedesigner.com/


Barry
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06/09/2010 12:10:08

freakmoomin
freakmoomin
Posts: 272 		My main tip would be to turn the ambient light off altogether and then work from there....or if you dont want to turn it off then make it VERY low.

the ambient light really destroys the look for me
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06/09/2010 13:49:22

Emily
Emily
(Account inactive)
Posts: 346 		Some good points Barry, and some great links.

Something to keep in mind is that colour can define the genre of the film, but it can also be very cliche.

Take a look at this article, it sums this up perfectly.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html
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06/09/2010 18:09:48

Than
Than
Posts: 127 		Yes good tips and I agree to turn down the enviroment light down a bit or a lot and also experiment if using several lights with the distance as if you want to light something close only then the distance should be just enough to do that and not effect the other lights.

Most important tip I think is to dive into the lighting and play about with it lots, the unreal engine really does the rendering well when it comes to lighting.
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06/09/2010 18:11:30

Than
Than
Posts: 127 		And also shadows can create interesting effects it can be good to place lighting to create them. For example if you have a tree in front of a wall you could place the light so that the shadows of the tree branches hit the wall and give a cool effect.
edited by Than on 9/6/2010
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06/09/2010 21:33:19

toonaramaMuvizu mogulExperimental user
toonarama
Posts: 661 		many thanks to you all for the hints and tips
much appreciated
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