Lighting Experimentation & Reflection on the Day Version

Hey everyone! 

I decided to carry out some more lighting experimentations which led to a day version of the little Mediterranean town scene I presented in the previous post. To start off let's go through the lighting process for the initial concept quickly and continue with the development process of the new version afterwards so that I can explain some thoughts and challenges.

The Lighting Process

During the texturing process I was already playing around with basic lighting. As you can see in the top left image I therefore created a physical sun and sky in mental ray to have a closer look at the texture quality and atmosphere of the scene.

For the final concept I wanted to create my own lighting though and I therefore removed the physical sun and sky again. I now started to add different light sources to the scene. 

Ambient Light

For the overall atmosphere of the scene I added 3 ambient lights. I decided to go for a night version of the scene and gave these a blue tone. One of the ambient lights was hereby the main light source which received a higher intensity than the others. This allowed more realistic lighting with greater value difference in the scene.

Spot Light

Then I went on to the street lamps that need to produce a local light. The spot light with its adjustable cone angle was ideal to create a clear and defined light source. The main difficulty was the preservation of the scene's balance and unity by adjusting the colour and light intensity to not stand out too much.

I also applied "light fog" to the spotlights which creates some more depth in the renders. However I had difficulties to apply this setting to both spot lights in the scene and for some reason only one the two applied light fog's would render out.

Glow

The spot lights created light, but the actual light source was still missing. I therefore created a simple polygon shape and applied glow with a suiting opacity and colour to fit the lamps light source. The overall atmosphere was building up nicely and I decided I was almost ready to render out a final image to paint over for the final concept art.

Point Light

Lastly an extra point light was added to the lamps to create a bit more warmth and light to the lamp area. At this stage I chose the camera position and composition for the final render of the night scene.

With the advantage of being able to change the complete lighting and camera position in 3D scenes I decided to take a new approach and create further artwork to this scene. First of all I decided to go for a day version and therefore removed the lights forming the lamps.

Skybox and Light Source Adjustments

Then it was time to increase the intensity and lighten up the colour on the ambient lights. At this point I also lightened up the skybox colour and added a slight glow to it but the result was not very satisfying. As one can see in the 2nd picture on the right image sequence the skycolour worked well but the whole scene is still dominantly in the shade.

Emit Photons

I had also added a directional light at this point and found myself playing around with different settings like depth map, ray tracing shadows and emitting photons. With emit photons enabled a nice effect in the scene occurred as can be seen above in the 3rd picture of the right image sequence.

It almost took a rain-look like effect with slight illumination of the scene and an overall bluish tone.

However I found this too similar to the already produced artworks mood and colour scheme.

Lighting Decision

I decided to go for a very basic and bright Mediterranean feel with almost completely white lighting in contrast to previous darker versions and their dominating blues. (See image below) 

Here is the comparison between the render and the final artwork.

Reflection on the Day Version

Mood and Composition
To emphasize the positive and inviting atmosphere and mood I added colour through lively vines growing up the sunny side of the right building. These have very saturated greens and yellows, yet low colour and value contrast to their surroundings.
The vines also surround and frame the main building and create a nice colour contrast between the greens and the reds of the windows to guide the eye more effectively towards the main building.

High Value Contrast
However the main aspect that draws one's attention to this building is the high value contrast of the bright building on the shady background. This high value contrast and composition creates an interesting image and I think the lighting of the added elements turned out very well and strengthens the image as a whole.

The Painting Process with Time Limits
I have improved my painting speed by setting myself time limits on recent studies and artwork. For this project I gave myself an hour to update the rendered image. It still feels sort of rough but works as a whole which is important. Future steps would include further detailing and cleaning up but a client should be able to recognize in what direction the painting is going at this stage.

I started off by searching for images of wines and once finding some good reference started to painting in the main roots. I then applied a photo texture of vines and transformed the perspective to create the core wall of vines over which I painted to correct the perspective furthermore. This methods saves me lots of time and is a very useful procedure as long as I am in control of the added images and not the other way around. One of the main challenges hereby is to achieve believable lighting and avoiding too much detail early on.

Image by Jay Taylor (2011)

And most importantly, the design must come from the artist and not the added images. I've previously found it quite difficult to stay in full control of my artwork and often encountered problems to achieve the desired affect or integrate images without having them change the design or stand out too much.
It is key to develop one's drawing skills before relying too much on a method like this. The result was very satisfying for this project though as it turned out just how I imagined it to and has little to do with the original image as one can see above.