Still from the animated short Shave It. Property of 3DAR.
Lighting has some basic general characteristics that are applicable to any scene. Creating mood, directing the viewer’s eye, and creating visual shaping are all valid regardless of the specific situation. There are, however, specific components to different lighting scenarios that demand special requirements and needs. What characteristics make up successful beauty lighting for a character? How does one approach lighting a character’s eye? What are some of the tricks for lighting an interior environment versus an exterior? These are the types of questions this chapter will explore.
In most animated films, the character is the driving element for the story. Characters act out a performance and the audience normally focuses on these characters for the majority of the film. Because of this focused attention, developing and pushing character lighting is crucial to a visually successful animated project. In previous chapters this book discussed the use of Rembrandt Lighting in characters as a means of generating shaping, but there is more that can be done to make the characters shine.
Hero Color
Characters in animated films generally have an ideal color. Shrek has a specific green. Woody has his warm hue. The Minions of Despicable Me have a very distinct yellow color. This color is often described as being the “hero color” for that character. The lighting artist must make sure the character’s hero color is present and identifiable regardless of the lighting scenario. This is achieved by crafting lights with specific hues and intensities to make the hero color apparent.
This becomes especially important when the overall color design of a scene is a complementary color to the hero color of the character. Say there is a cool-toned character with blue fur. If that character were placed next to warm candlelight, the artist would take special attention to ensure the character’s cool tones are not being too contaminated with the warm light. These conflicting values can not only take the character away from the hero hue, but also desaturate and gray the character, often making them look ill.
Figure 6.1 The lighting on the left allows the true hero color of the character to stand out while the cooler lighting on the right works against his warm hues and actually makes him look discolored and sickly. Pio is downloadable character courtesy of Boutique23 (www.boutique23.com).
Take Miranda from this sequence in Brave (Figure 6.2). Her main iconic element is her fiery red hair. If the artist had chosen to have the cool surroundings influence it too much, then the warmth of the hair would be desaturated and weak. Her skin tone would also suffer by looking washed out and sickly. These warm tones also aid in readability since her skin and hair help her stand out from not only the cool colored surroundings, but also the glowing orb which is the object of her gaze.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the artist completely ignores the lighting scenario. If no care is given to the surroundings, the character will look out of place or as if the character does not belong in that environment. Instead the artist must find the balance between integrating the characters into the scene and making the character match the hero color. This can be a difficult challenge, but by identifying and using good reference it can be achieved.
Figure 6.2 Miranda’s red hair is kept recognizable and iconic in all lighting situations. © Disney.
Figure 6.3 Techniques of getting a character to read include light over dark (top right), saturation over desaturated (top left), warm over cool (bottom left), and sometimes dark over light (bottom right). Still from the animated short Shave It (bottom left). Property of 3DAR. Still from the animated short The Missing Scarf (top left). Property of Eoin Duffy. Still from the animated short Juste de l’eau (top right). Property of Carlos DeCarvalho. Still from the animated short The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (bottom right). Property of Moonbot Studios.
More Defined Focus
Character lighting often involves getting the audience to focus on the area of the character most significant to the story. Often characters are talking and exchanging dialog so the focus should be on the face, specifically the eyes. Other times characters are pointing at something or holding an important object and the artist needs the audience to focus on the hands. There could also be a situation where the character is standing in a significant spot so the artist needs to focus the gaze down toward the feet. In each of these cases it is the lighter’s job to nudge the viewer’s eye in the right direction.
The best way to accomplish this is to over-emphasize whatever technique is being used to get the character to stand out from the background in the first place. If the character is light and the background is dark, then the area of focus will become slightly brighter.
If the character is dark over a light background, perhaps the area just around the head is slightly brighter in the background. If it is a difference of saturation, like cool character over a warmer background, one option could be to make the focal point a touch more saturated and slightly brighter in value. These increases should be minor and almost unperceivable by the audience. The shift between the light and dark sections should be a nice, smooth transition that never pushes the values into blown-out whites or deep blacks.
Specularity for Variation
It is a constant battle for lighting artists to continuously create shaping in characters. One of the tools for this is specularity. Whether they are covered in skin, fur, feathers, or scales, characters can often have significant specular values that can be controlled to create shaping. Beginning artists will see a section of a character that is looking flat and uninteresting and immediately push diffuse light to that region to create variation. This can lead to characters looking overly lit and not properly falling off in the shadowed areas. Often, especially in fill/bounce areas, adding a light that emits specularity only will create the right amount of variation without adding diffuse light. This is especially true with long hair as the specularity will show off some sheen and shape.
Framing the Character
Using light and structural elements in a scene to frame a character is important to help focus attention. Staging the scene so that surrounding elements visually encompass the character is extremely important. Additionally, a lighter can light these elements in such a way for the framing to be more successful. The lighter can rim these elements to get their shapes to read. Another way is to construct dark values around the focal point to help frame the action. Additionally, the artist must actively avoid visual intersections or tangents between a character and the background. This does not mean the character is actually intersecting with other geometry. What it means is that background elements are awkwardly placed to slash through or stick out of the character in 2D space. For example, the branch of a tree coming into a frame and visually sticking into the side of the head of the character would exemplify this concept. From a lighting standpoint, this could be a hard shadow that goes right through the middle of the character, visually cutting him in half. By moving this distracting background shadow the artist can create a stronger composition.
Figure 6.4 By adding specular values across the back of the head of this robot the artist was able to avoid flat shapes and generate successful shaping. Still from the animated short L3.0. Property of Pierre Jury, Vincent Defour, Cyril Declercq, Alexis Decelle, and ISART DIGITAL (school).
Figure 6.5 The lamp post and carriage do an excellent job framing the action in this shot. Still from the animated short The Picture of Dorian Grey. Property of Tom Beg.
Figure 6.6 In this example, the corner of the wall is bisecting the character’s head and is distracting. By repositioning the camera slightly the artist is able to create a better composition.
It is impossible to discuss character lighting without mentioning the eyes. Creating well-lit eyes is absolutely necessary for building a connection between the audience and the character. The eyes are what give a character a soul and can make the audience feel there is more than what exists on the surface. If ever an audience describes a CG character as looking “dead” or “unnatural” it is almost always because the eyes are not right. The specific description can even be termed as “dead-eyed.” Animators can create beautiful, subtle emotion in the eyes, but if the lighter does not make those movements come to life it is all for naught.
Anatomy of the Eye
In order to understand how an eye should be lit the artist should have a general understanding of the anatomy of an eye. Other animals have different eye geometry from human beings, but the humanlike eye is given to almost all CG characters since audiences are more comfortable connecting with that look. The human eye is made up of two main sections that should be replicated in the geometry. The first is the outer, clear layer that protects the eye, known as the cornea. This is the clear lens that is wet and gives the eye its visually reflective quality. The inner part of the eye is made up of a sphere with one concave dimple that is the central, functioning area of the eye. This inner sphere is broken up into three parts: the sclera (the white part of the eye), the iris (the “colored” part of the eye), and the pupil (the black circle at the center of the eye).
Figure 6.7 The top image demonstrates how different a crocodile’s eye is from a human’s. The bottom image diagrams the major anatomy points that need to be understood when lighting a human eye.
It is important that the eye geometry in the 3D scene be modeled to mimic this setup. Eyes have a unique way of interacting with light and will only look natural to the audience if created a certain way. If the eye were simply just one sphere, the artist would not be able to achieve the same depth and accuracy necessary for the audience to connect with the character. The audience may not be able to identify exactly what those characteristics are, but they will know when they are not present.
Figure 6.8 The eye geometry should consist of a spherical sclera, a concave iris, and a pupil, all inside a clear cornea.
Figure 6.9 The iris is illuminated on the side opposite of the key due to its concave shape.
The first element necessary for successful eye lighting is creating good overall shaping. The sclera works pretty much like any other sphere. The light should be brighter on the key side and get darker toward the fill. The iris is where it becomes interesting. Since the iris is on a concave slope, the key side of the iris is actually angled away from the light while the opposite side is facing the key. Therefore, it is the opposite side of the iris that gets the illumination while the key side is darker.
Generally speaking, the artist wants the eye whites to be the brightest part on the face. This makes sense since they are mostly white and the artist wants the audience to connect to the character by looking him or her in the eye. The difficulty arises when they need to be bright while still maintaining shaping and, most importantly, not “blowing out” or becoming too overly lit. The overall value of the eye white is very sensitive and must be treated delicately.
The sclera, iris, and pupil must all be visible as three separate sections. This can often be a problem between the iris and the pupil. If the iris becomes too dark and blends with the pupil, the result will appear as though the character has either black eyes or one large pupil. The iris must also not become too intense in value or saturation. This will make the character look bizarre and potentially insane. Striking that proper balance is key.
All of these specifications can lead to eyes being lit separately from the rest of the character or independently adjusted in the composite. This is fine but the artist must remember that while the eye is the brightest part of the face, it must not stand out too much and must feel integrated with the lighting of the rest of the face. This is especially true at the point where the eyeball meets the eyelid. There should be some darkening or occlusion taking place that allows the eye to sit back into place behind the eyelids.
As mentioned previously, there is a cornea that sits on top of the sclera, iris, and pupil. This is a thin, wet, transparent membrane that protects the front of the eye. Visually, the cornea provides two main looks. The first is the reflective quality of the eye. The cornea will not only reflect the area immediately surrounding the eye, like eyelashes or glasses, but also the scene surrounding the character. Therefore, it may be important to create a reflection pass for just the cornea on close-up shots to show what the character is looking at.
The other main visual contribution of the cornea is the eye ding. The eye ding is the specular highlight in the eye that is normally the reflection of the key light. Eye dings give the character’s eyes more depth and personality. They can either be a circular dot created by a spotlight emitting specular only and linked to the cornea or, for a more realistic look, they could mimic the actual shape of an object or key light in the scene through the eye reflection. The artist generally only wants one ding light per eye. The ding will be brighter on the key side and slightly dimmer on the fill side. It should be on the key side of the eye and mimic the color of the key light. The ding is best when positioned on the border between either the iris and pupil or iris and sclera. It usually works best when at the ten o’clock or two o’clock position on the eye and it should never fall into the center of the eye.
When the eye is animated, this can get tricky. Often artists initially want to parent the eye ding/spec light to the eye position, but that is a bad idea. Remember, the eye ding is meant to mimic the key light, so if the key light is stationary, the ding should be stationary too. That isn’t to say the artist should not animate the position of the eye ding slightly to keep it aesthetically pleasing, but the audience should not perceive movement. With the proper technique and finesse this animation could be subtle and unseen. Better yet, the artist can hide the animated movement of the eye ding in the character’s blinks. So everything is stationary until the two or three frames as the character blinks and then the artist can shift things around as the dings are hidden.
Figure 6.10 A checklist for creating successful eye lighting.
Lighting interior spaces could be one of the trickiest tasks for a lighter. How does exterior light enter the space and influence the look? What if there are light sources inside the space? What color are those lights and how do they illuminate the room? There are a number of extremely subtle elements that must be balanced with great care in order to get the final look to be successful.
Various Light Colors and Intensities
Interior lighting contains a wide array of different light sources. There can be direct sunlight, window light, tungsten lamps, fluorescent lamps, candlelight, and countless others. Each one of these light sources varies in intensity and contains a great range of colors. Tungsten light bulbs and candles normally look orange/yellow and can create a nice warm tone to a space. Fluorescent lights are much cooler and can even have a green cast. Natural light coming in through the windows will have a wide variety of colors depending on time of day.
Figure 6.11 Light color can widely vary from cool to warm depending on the specific light source.
When balancing light intensities between interior sources and exterior sources, it is important to remember that the human eye has the dynamic range to allow humans to see what is outside and inside the space at the same time. Photographic images do not work the same way. Almost always, the artist would need to decide whether to expose the film so the exterior is balanced properly but the interior is very dark. Or the interior light is exposed correctly and the exterior light is glowing white and the landscape is difficult to perceive. So in trying to replicate a photorealistic environment the artist must respect this limitation of photography and create an image that replicates that look.
Figure 6.12 It is rare to have exposure levels the same inside a building as outside. The artist usually must choose either to make the outside extremely bright and the inside properly balanced or to have the inside go dark as the outside has the proper exposure.
Artificial Interior Light Sources
One of the main light sources when dealing with interior spaces in modern times is the lamp. Lamps come in many varieties and each has its own specific qualities. The bulbs themselves can have unique shapes and can cast many different colors depending on whether they are tungsten, LED, or CFLs. These lights can be simulated in CG using different methods depending on the renderer, but the key is to identify the main attributes of the light being simulated with reference and artistically recreate it.
Figure 6.13 When analyzing interior lights, it is important to pay attention to the color, intensity, and how far the light travels into the room.
Figure 6.14 It is important to evaluate the shape the light makes on the wall as well.
There are a few key elements that should be identified when trying to replicate any artificial light source. The first is light color and intensity, mentioned in the previous section. How bright is the spot on the wall closest to the light source? How far does that particular light’s influence reach? How much light shines through the shade? How much does that shade influence the color of the light hitting the wall?
The second is the shape created when that particular light source interacts with the surrounding environment. Some lamps use traditional bulbs that allow the light to directly hit the wall, while some lamps have an element the light passes through before reaching the surroundings. Other lamps are similar to car headlights in that the bulb is pointed at a reflective surface and bounces the light into the world. This often causes a pattern or shape to form on surrounding surfaces. Additionally, depending on the age and state of the light, this reflective element could be disfigured and shine asymmetrically.
While there are countless nuances that could be factored into the final look, another major element that must always be considered is the shape of the cast shadow of the lamp or shade onto the surroundings. Depending on the size of the bulb, the distance between the bulb and the object being lit, the distance between the light source and the wall, and the type of lampshade, this shadow shape can change dramatically.
Window Lighting
One of the most intriguing elements of interior lighting is dealing with the combination of interior artificial lights with exterior natural light. The natural light often comes streaming in through windows and has a certain aesthetic quality. This look is extremely common to those in the modern world and should be replicated accurately in order to ensure the believability.
Moonlight and sunlight shining through windows have visually parallel light rays. This means the shadow created by the window onto the floor is parallel and does not warp in any way. The way the shadow looks at the bottom of the window is the same as the look of the shadow at the top. They are not elongated or foreshortened because that gives the wrong visual indicator. This will make the light source feel too unnaturally close to the window and it will no longer feel like sunlight or moonlight.
Light rays get diffused when passing through glass and this causes the light and shadow quality to get a bit softer. The level of this diffusion depends on the specific type of glass but the shadows cast inside a building are always a little softer than if the scene were outside because of this window diffusion. One thing to remember with daytime window light is that it is not only the sunlight that is shining through. The artist must account for the color of the sky and any other exterior elements that would penetrate through the window.
Figure 6.15 It is always interesting working with the color combination of warm tungsten light with the much cooler daylight.
Figure 6.16 Examples of a “cooler” and “warmer” white balance.
White Balance
Whether a photographer, a painter, or a lighter, all artists must consider how to handle balancing the color of various light sources of an interior scene. “White balance” is a term used in photography and filmmaking. It refers to balancing the color to determine the white point of an image. Therefore, white balance settings can be used to balance out either the warm hues of daylight or the cool hues of nighttime. The difficulty is what to do when you have both warm and cool light in a scene.
Consider an example. There may be cool moonlight shining through the window and warm lamps on the interior. Does the artist balance the color to neutralize the cool exterior but increase the warm look of the interior? Or does the artist balance the white level to the interior allowing the cool tones coming through the window to be saturated? In CG lighting, the artist has the ability to control these values. Figuring out the proper balance between the various type of light sources will go a long way in determining the final look of the shot.
Walls and Corners
Interior light does not illuminate a flat wall evenly. The closer a section of a wall is to the light source, the brighter that section will be. The more exposed the walls are, the more ambient light they will receive. Therefore, the wide part of the wall will be brighter than the corners since it is more exposed to ambient light. This shift as the eye travels down the wall is subtle, but crucial when striving to replicate accurate interior light.
The connection points between walls, ceilings, and floors are also crucial areas. Many times inexperienced artists will create very hard lines between these elements. This is normally a result of light linking causing certain lights to hit one wall but not the ceiling they are connected to. This results in a visual problem where there is a drastic light and color difference between the two surfaces that are merely inches apart. It is therefore important to always ensure that the walls, ceilings and floors are always well balanced and create a seamless flow throughout the space as they would in the real world.
Subtle Shaping and Bounce
Many interior lighting scenarios come down to one major question: Can the artist create visual interest and subtle shaping around a space dominated by a variety of light sources and a lot of bounce and fill lights? This is no easy feat for anyone to accomplish, let alone new artists. Much practice and repetition are necessary before successful, consistent interior images can be completed. Always remember to have a good reference to keep on track and focused.
Figure 6.17 Notice the varying values as the light moves up and down the wall.
Landscapes present an array of challenges to the lighting artist that mostly center on the perception of scale. Not always will the set contain humans or common objects that will give the audience a size reference to work with. Sometimes it is the lighter’s job to communicate that scale successfully through subtle hints and replicating natural phenomena.
It is of the utmost importance for lighting artists to understand aerial perspective. Aerial perspective, or atmospheric perspective, is the perception of objects changing appearance as they fall back into space. They lose detail around the edges and, internally, become less saturated and lose contrast as they recede from the camera. Aerial perspective is something that has been analyzed and duplicated in painting for hundreds of years. Although the practice of creating aerial perspective was long established, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to use the term and wrote about it in Treatise on Painting: “Colors become weaker in proportion to their distance from the person who is looking at them.”
Figure 6.18 Still from the animated short Mac and Cheese. Property of Colorbleed Animation Studio.
Figure 6.19 Notice how the mountains appear cooler and have less contrast as they fall back into space.
This atmospheric presence is caused by moisture and particles in the air scattering light as it passes. Depending on the wavelength of the light, the scattering of light will vary. Blue light fades away the slowest and, therefore, objects will generally shift toward cooler tones as they fall back into space.
In nature, elevation also plays a large role in determining aerial perspective. The base of a mountain will have more aerial perspective than the peak since the density of the atmosphere is greater at lower elevations. There are also pockets of atmosphere that form in crevices around the mountain that can also lead to varying scatter amounts. The importance in images that lean towards the more photoreal is to include subtle variation within the look of the aerial perspective.
Figure 6.20 Extremely abstract backgrounds can be used to keep the audience focused on the foreground elements. © Disney.
All that being said, animated films will artistically craft aerial perspective to adapt it to a certain aesthetic. This was especially true of the early Disney features like Bambi that would often use very beautiful, colorful, abstract backgrounds with dense atmospherics to keep the attention on the characters.
Figure 6.21 The shadows from the clouds break up the landscape and help give the terrain a sense of scale. In computer graphics this would best be achieved with a gobo.
Figure 6.22 Notice how the god rays can emanate out from the sun in a radial pattern.
Gobos
Gobo lights play a large role in lighting exteriors. Frequently there are wide swaths of land in a CG scene that can appear very even and boring. Using gobo lighting to simulate clouds in the sky and to break up the illumination of a vast landscape is a common practice. This will not only allow for some visual shaping and variation, it will also provide scale to the scene. The more light variation on a particular object, the larger it normally appears.
God Rays
God rays are a specific type of volumetric light that can occur in nature when the lighting conditions are suitable. This will happen when the sun breaks through the clouds and a radial light ray is formed. This can be incredibly beautiful in nature and can also be commonly used in animated projects to make an environment seem friendlier or more romantic. Ultimately, god rays are an extremely beautiful natural occurrence that a lighting artist has at his or her disposal to deploy when necessary.
Balancing Black Points
This is similar to aerial perspective but the artist must take special consideration regarding the black points on an environment. Black points refer to the spot that is the absolute darkest. That darkest area is referred to as the black point of that image or region of the image.
The simple concept to remember is that the black point is darkest close to the camera and gets slightly lifted as you move back into space. Black points in distant background objects that are too black can jump off an image and right into the face of the viewer. This will break the illusion of depth and space and can be problematic. The key is to always keep the blackest blacks closer to camera and let the values become slightly lifted as they fall back into space.
Figure 6.23 As the image recesses back into space, the black point is raised and the difference can be quite dramatic.
It must always be remembered that tips like the ones given in this chapter are just general guidelines and not hardened rules. Lighting is a fluid process and the artist must always be ready to adjust in order to make a successful image. These are simply tips learned over years of experience and ones that are generally considered good practice. The key is to establish the goal look with reference, identify the key elements of that look, then do whatever it takes to hit those key elements and make the shot look great!
Q. How long have you been at your current company?
A. I’ve been a Lighter at Blue Sky Studios since 2000. I was the Lighting Supervisor of Epic and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Q. Do you have a favorite light?
A. No, but I do have a least favorite light—the key.
Q. What’s your beef with the key light?
A. Don’t get suckered in by the key, it’s overrated. The easiest way to ruin a shot is to become overly dependent on the contribution of the key light. If you’re not careful, it can really get away from you. You know, like that loudmouth at a party who shouts over everyone and keeps calling attention to himself inappropriately. Understanding the ambient conditions of your scene needs to come first. When I start a shot, I ignore the key. I’ll light it as if a cloud has passed in front of the sun or as if bulbs have burnt out. The scene you light isn’t dark or flat, it’s subtly shaped by ambient sources. All the objects and characters must be given body and weight. Once the scene looks believable like that—balanced without any overriding directionality—then adding in the key will only make things better. Starting with a key light and filling in around it can get you into trouble fast. It might look okay at first but once you start moving lights around to hit notes, the holes will reveal themselves.
Q. What is the role of the key, then?
A. Every shot in a film is designed with a purpose. As a lighter, your first responsibility is to understand that purpose and what your shot must contribute to progress the story. Mood is established in large part by ambient lighting. You introduce the key light to upset the equilibrium of the ambient environment and use its color and directionality judiciously to tip the overall composition in a way that reinforces the narrative trajectory of the shot.
Q. What makes for great shot lighting?
A. Lighting is fundamentally about composition. This book covers the artistic and technical concepts necessary to direct the viewer’s eye. Shots in a feature film are on screen for only a few seconds so a well-lit shot must quickly establish hierarchy in the frame and focus the audience’s attention on what’s important to the story.
Q. So the key to good lighting is story?
A. A shot will look good if it’s doing the right thing. Unlike in live action, in CG production the saying would go “Camera, Action, Lights!” CG lighters have the benefit of beginning their work with the contributions of the other disciplines already in place. In every shot you light, all the artists in the pipeline before you have used the tools of their trades to reinforce a story point. It’s all there for you already, you just need to understand it and then use the compositional tools of lighting to shape the image so that the audience will, too.