Hello World!
It's been a long time.... How have you been?
I've been up to a lot of crazy-busy stuff in the past month. It's honestly been such a whirlwind. But I'm excited to share some new updates with you. Woohoo!!
Without further ado, let's get into it!
So this week marked our first week back at FIEA and what a week it was! We got probably one of my favorite Common Art assignments (and workshops!) ever this week-- a lighting project! While I still have a lot to learn, I am so stoked about this assignment.
Now, it wasn't easy to hit the ground running on this one, as I initially had some problems with the 3D model I chose. Now, for the curious, yes, I used the models at ThreeDScans. You can check them out at the link just before this sentence! These models are particularly great for practicing lighting because they are clay and wood models, meaning that they do not have complicated textures that make it difficult to see what you're doing.
Unfortunately, though, the first model I picked was not scaled or oriented right. It was flipped over on the Z-Axis and it was seriously way too big. Like it was so big that I couldn't figure out how to focus the camera on it! So I ditched it and decided to work with our friend, the Goat!
I was still having trouble, though. So, I had to get by with a little help from my friends.... Big shoutout to Aimee for helping me figure out the Area Light and Exposure thing. I was seriously stuck and she gave me some awesome tips. Thanks, Aimee! You rock!
Alright, so... You probably want to go ahead and see more of my model, huh?
So, let's get right into it! Also, check out this sick transparent PNG I accidentally saved! Let me know if you like this one better than the one above!
I'm going to start off with the RGB pass. This pass was supposed to give viewers and the artist an idea of how intense the lighting and shadows were. It also was intended to make it easy for me to adjust things and render.
And it really was the best way to start off. Knowing how much I needed to tweak everything really saved me a lot of heartache. Speaking of heartache! Look at the below image. This was my very first pass. Or, you could say, Baby's First Lighting Pass. I'm glad I made some changes to it in the above three images!
So, I took the shots from multiple angles, just to show you where the lights and shadows are really doing their work. I know that it's not a perfect job, but I'm pretty happy with this for my first attempt at lighting. In future Challenges like this, I want to experiment with moody colors or palettes, like Tom discussed in our workshop.
Anywho! Let's break right into the full-color pass now!
So, for this one, I gave it kind of a warm tint with moody shadows. To do this, I adjusted the temperature and settled with the option I liked the best. It was a really good time and it was nowhere near as stressful as the RGB pass because I had already tweaked things in that rendition. So, I was thankful that the RGB pass made it easy to see mistakes and make adjustments. Hooray for progress!
Much like the previous attempt, I took multiple different shots from multiple angles. I really wanted you to see where these lights fell and what I was attempting with the model.
All in all, I know it isn't perfect, but I'm so excited to finally tackle lighting. I was always so confused about how to render and (not going to lie) Arnold always scared the pants off of me.
But, now that I have practice in it, I honestly would love to render more in this. It does the model much more justice than the default Maya render. And, it's also much easier to save an image file directly in Arnold instead of taking a screenshot and hoping it's 1920 x 1080 p. Not that I've done that before or anything!
But yeah!
Thanks for looking at my stuff. And, Tom, if you are reading this-- Thank YOU! I appreciate your time, your workshop, and your awesome advice. Let me know what I need to work on so I can make it even better for the next assignment!
Have a great long weekend and enjoy the chilly weather!
See you on the Flip Side!
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