Kelsey Hall FIEA Blog: Lighting a Scene

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Lighting a Scene

Angle 1 of Final Lighting Build

This was an assignment in class where I learned a little bit more about lighting. Mostly from this project I learned about optimization and that less can be more with lighting. The big lesson for me was the Overridden Light Map Res setting. When I did some research about optimization the colors the maps turn is a big indicator on how optimized a piece of geometry is. I found some wrong information and spent time optimizing the scene incorrectly. After asking some level designers some questions I did ultimately fix the scene and optimized the geometry correctly.

Incorrect Geometry Optimization

Once I fixed the optimization I was inspired by an amber bar look so I created a PureRef of all the images I found on Google that inspired me.

PureRef Reference Page

After looking at some images I began to place some lights in the scene where I thought they should go. Many of my lights were on the ceiling on the level as my level does not have many natural light sources other than a light hanging above the piano.

Placing Lights into the Scene

Once I placed my lights I began to work on the tone and colors of my lights. I tried to keep it somewhat dark with warm tones coming from my lights. I used temperature to create the natural warmth look.

Using Temperature in My Scene

Originally my scene had a lot of highlights and many lights in the scene that was not needed. After having a level designer critique my lighting I decided to improve my lighting.

My Original Lighting

For my first big change I took out many lights from the ceiling and created one big light that lights the scene. I then added candles to the scene to give more opportunity or light sources in the scene and I added ambience lighting.

First Big Change in my Scene

For the second change I brightened my scene using my light that lights the entire scene, created variation to the candles, and added lights behind the curtains.