I finished creating a pre-visual of one scene. After constructing the scene and fixing issues with my UV maps and hair, I spent most of my time on the lighting. It’s funny, but I always regarded lighting in CG very lightly, a simple matter of setting up a light rig and leaving it at that. I’ve developed a newfound respect for CG lighting because there are things you need to consider such as separating the light/ specularity/ shadow passes for compositing, maximizing light setups to give you the best possible render time, and most importantly getting the right look.
I studied lighting in university and understand how to set up lighting within a studio for photography or video shoots and in many cases, those lessons carry over to CG. Setting up a key light and fill light for instance require knowing which positions to set the lights and how intense each light source will be (through using a light meter to get proper exposure). Achieving effects such as rim-lighting and butterfly lighting are concepts that carry over into CG.
Beyond understanding the physical setup of light at a studio, there is a whole new realm of lighting considerations in CG that make my head turn.
Lighting can really make or break your comp. In this case I had to tweak the shadow maps, specularities, reflections, adjust the gamma for linear workflow, and optimal settings for the Irradiance cache. Optimizing is necessary in order to get the quickest renders possible for the best look. I’m aware of other challenging tasks that a lighting expert handles and will probably post more on this topic once I encounter more issues and problems in future projects.
With the lighting finished now I will begin adding clothe tags, dynamic simulations and keyframes.
I am happy with the test render, but I am beginning to feel that I need an extra element to emphasize football in this piece. Perhaps a helmet? A football?