- iClone 4.31 3D Animation Beginner's Guide
- M.D. McCallum
- 889字
- 2021-08-27 12:20:55
Lighting in 3D animation
In 3D animation, lighting is a very important aspect of selling a scene to a viewer. It is often overlooked as the single most important aspect of what the scene is trying to portray. You can build a great scene with wonderful props, plants, and fantastic vistas but if the lighting is done poorly, all that work will be a waste of time. Viewers have grown very sophisticated and have been indoctrinated by the wizards of animation like Pixar, for which lighting is a big part.
Lighting is not just a means to make the scene visible, but rather it creates mood, which is very important in any animation or movie. Just as in live action photography and videography lighting takes time, effort, and forethought.
When lighting a scene there are several things that you need to keep in mind and these are just the basics:
- The mood of the scene. Scary? Sunny? Stormy?
- Interior or Exterior.
- Colors of the scene: Warm, cold, or indifferent to either.
- Location of the lights.
- Type of lights used.
- Animated, fixed lighting, or both?
A hospital room would be lit differently from a sunny meadow or snow covered field. A darkened children's playroom might infer something sinister whereas a brightly lit playroom would invite fun.
Bluish lighting in a snow scene could infer more cold than pure white lighting or adding a touch of red to a scene involving fire can add an element of dread and help sell that scene.
Selling a scene is very important because after all is said and done, if we did a poor job of selling the scene, then we will get a poor return on our effort.
Light types and shadows
iClone has one ambient, four directional and/or spotlights, four point lights, and atmospheric lighting effects. The following chart is taken from the Reallusion Help file:
There are four spotlight/directional lights available. The limited number is due to the amount of resources required for lights and its load on the engine.
Directional lights
Spotlights
Point lights
The next image shows the lighting control section in which we can select and manipulate individual lights:
Understanding ambient light
Think of ambient light as sunlight or moonlight. The scene's natural light is ambient light.
- Ambient light is always on. To darken it for night, select a dark gray, black, or whatever dark color you desire in the pop-up color window.
- Ambient light affects objects in the scene and casts shadows from those objects. You cannot animate the ambient light with keyframes.
- Ambient light helps to set the mood for the scene.
Due to the limited number of lights, it is critical that you take care in the planning and placement of these precious resources. Lighting used wisely can make for an unforgettable scene. Some animators start with black ambient light with judicious use of the spotlight and point lights to achieve certain moods. A brighter ambient light can also keep outdoor scene from appearing dull.
Manipulating the lights in the 3D workspace
The lights are controlled within the Scene Manager located in the left-side menu and the right side Modify menu. You can also freeze the light or turn on an icon to represent the light source to locate it in the 3D workspace.
The lights that can be manipulated within the 3D workspace share the same gizmo or direct manipulation as the props.
Setting the mood with lighting and atmosphere
Just because this is a daylight scene doesn't mean we don't have some lighting work to do. Lighting any scene is important whether it's in total daylight or darkness.
Volumes have been and will continue to be written about lighting and its impact on the visualization of the scene. Even if you are only rendering out a single image, the lighting is just as important to that single image as it is to a 10 minute scene.
There is much that can be discussed about lighting, but this guide concentrates on beginner-level skills to get you going instead of bogging you down in the minutiae of the process. With that in mind we are going to tackle lighting our outdoor scene in this next section.
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