Lighting and Camera

MULTIPASS RENDERING

Multipass rendering is a technique commonly used in the CGI industry as it gives more control and flexibility to enhancing shot clarity in post production. It allows rendering of each light to be done separately, if needed, and can be composted into one shot. It also gives more flexibility if Ambient Occlusion passes are rendered along with lighting shadows, color, spec, reflection and more

In our scenes, each scene will have its own lighting and elements that will require different passes. The common passes will be lighting, GI, total lighting, reflection, shadows and AO. The rest depends on the scene, hence each scene needs to be studied carefully before rendering. The lighting needs to go through various rounds of feedback before it can be considered final and ready for render.

LIGHTING

I started the lighting of my scenes first as I needed a balanced lighting to test the quality and depth of the textures. For the retro scene, it was fairly simple and didn’t require as many multi passes. The living room , however, had a lot going on and needed to be constantly refined. From the first feedback I received, it was too “one tone”. So I was advised to check for lighting references and these are what I found that I would like to replicate in our scene as well. We want it to be a bit horrifying. So we added some more cooler lights to balance things out and this is what I arrived with at the end of week 7 before rendering.

(Screenshots of my initial lighting tests)

(Reference images of horror vintage rooms - our inspiration and benchmark)

Moreover, I had to animate the lights while they were falling during the transition sequence. I write down the values and animated them to when they fall and gradually fade in until the ceiling falls down.

For the rollercoaster scene and RETRO, I used a custom made HDRI for the lighting. These were painted by me. Using the HDRI’s allowed for that fill light to seep in well. But in this case, they acted as the Key light from the overall environment. Other lights such as self-illumination from the mushroom heads were done to add some interest to the scene as it will be covered in VRAY fog, which brings me to my next point.

SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING - VRAY ENVIRONMENTAL FOG

VRAY fog was something I was excited to experiment with and so Dalia and I split the work into two scenes. She was supposed to take the fog in the creepy forest whereas I was meant to work on the rollercoaster scene. Due to one scene being taken out, we compromised. I did the VRAY fog tests as part of my self-directed learning along with the VR setup and editing.

Here were some of the tests I did for the last scene. As advised, I also checked how Zdepth would work with a 360 degree camera. The results were pretty amazing.

RGB with Zdepth:

Zdepth:

Alpha with Zdepth only:

RGB with Environmental fog:

Alpha with Environmental fog:

RGB with Zdepth and Environmental fog:

ALpha with Zdepth and Environmental fog:

Email confirmation with what to go ahead with:

Hence we concluded with rendering the shots with zdepth and rendering the VRAY fog separately. This will allow for more control on depth of field in post production.

CAMERA

Lastly, camera work is something that needed research from the start. From my research during the pre-production stage, the camera is set in the middle and will be rendered as a spherical 360 degree panorama in the VRAY Camera settings. Through tests, everything worked. However, the rule of thirds don’t really apply as the viewer is now the camera operator. They get to decide where they want to look. Yet, the way we placed the assets in the scene accounts for the rule of thirds in every direction. That’s the way I staged the shots. For example, in the living room scene, everything around the character floats in a way to make them feel like the are moving through the thirds of the screen. In whichever direction they turn they will see objects floating on the point of interjection. The way the floating animations were done also accounts for this. Moreover in the rollercoaster scene, this is an excellent example as the camera is the rollercoaster and everything around that moves or is placed is on the rule of thirds.

References:

(http://members.iinet.net.au/~multispud22/lahl/tutorials/Multipass/Multipass-intro.htm)