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Author Topic: Lighting on digital animation Phil Blake Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 558 From: esperance western australia Registered: Nov 2003 posted 06-16-2008 08:04 AM                        I have been watching a few Pixar toons with the kids on DVD. I noticed on the closing credits they list several people in charge of lighting? These are computer draw animations are they not,where are the lights ? maybe I am missing something I don't know.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-16-2008 08:27 AM                     When you put together a 3D scene you normally have to specify light sources and make adjustments to those lights to get the desired shading effects on all the 3D models. Most of the time those light sources aren't visible. Sometimes they are (the sun, car headlights, neon, etc.). Lighting helps create a lot of the mood in a scene. It's a pretty complex job, especially on a major project like a Pixar movie. Those scenes usually have many light sources along with lots of custom-engineered stuff to react with the lighting. All of this stuff must be managed so the movie has a consistent visual tone for the entire length of the movie.  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 06-16-2008 09:31 AM                     Also, as I was told by a digital animator that worked on some Disney stuff and now works for LucasArts, the lighting models don't include reflections so when you want a reflection (like in somebody's eye) the reflection is actually a "light" model. I forget the exact number example he told me but he said a pixar scene sometimes has dozens of light sources.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 06-16-2008 01:58 PM                        Has Pixar ever done one of those "behind the scenes" kind of extra feature on any of their DVDs? You know, the kind where they show the various visual processes that are used to say, render just one short shot? John Lasseter at Pixar is a great admirer and friend of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli. He's mentioned in interviews that when they've run into creative brick walls they've often pulled out and screened one of Miyazaki's films for a bit of a break and some inspiration. I mention this only to point out a Ghibli DVD that has one of these "how they did it" features, in this case showing how 3D tools and effects with names like Softimage and Houdini were used on 2D images. The lighting alone is impressive, with some of these 3-second shots requiring four layers of specular and diffuse light to achieve the desired end look. Some of those shots end up with 10 layers or more when all of the pieces and other effects come together. The DVD is the Japanese region-2 release of The Cat Returns (Neko no Ongaeshi) doubled with Ghiblies (Giburizu) Episode 2, VWDZ-8046 from Buena Vista Home Entertainment in Japan. The 18-minute "making of" extra is about Ghiblies Episode 2. It's in Japanese only, but the visuals are easy to follow and speak for themselves. If you're a fan of the nuts and bolts of CG animation it's definitely worth the trouble and expense to hunt this one down for a look.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-16-2008 04:49 PM                        I've only seen a couple of the Pixar DVDs. They have behind-the-scenes and "how they did it" features on them but of course they are geared for the non-technical viewer. Still amazing stuff though.  |  IP: Logged Adam Wilbert Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 590 From: Bellingham, WA, USA Registered: Mar 2002 posted 06-16-2008 09:10 PM                        I remember a special feature on one of the Toy Story DVDs that showed a shot (up in Sid's attic if I remember correctly) and they turned each light on one by one. There were a whole bunch of them, blue, red, white, yellow... all different colors and from different directions.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 06-20-2008 11:22 PM                       See my intermittent movement animation, elsewhere on this site, for examples of lights in rendered 3D animation. Hint: look for the various shadows cast by the objects. Every one is created by a virtual "light" that I placed, focused, and scrimmed in the modelling software. There's also a virtual "camera" that is making the moves about the scenes.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-21-2008 12:15 AM                     I continue to be amazed by the work that goes into the best of 3D animated movies, especially those from Pixar. It's amazing that they're able to pull off the shots they create. So many different processes are at work when the sequence is in its final render that the process takes a long amount of time. Ultimately it's a marvel in project planning. They have to get everything right before the final render because there may not be anywhere near enough time to redo the render if something goes wrong.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-21-2008 10:31 AM                     Bobby's right. When you render a scene in 3-D it's done with a process called Ray Tracing. The scene is modeled in the computer then a virtual camera is crated. Everything that is in the camera's field of view will be rendered in the final image. Next, virtual lights are set up and focused on the scene and on various objects. They are similar to real lights on a stage only they emit virtual photons. Finally, when it's time to make your rendered image, the computer looks at the location of every object and light source in the scene and calculates where every virtual photon would go. Those photons that reflect toward the virtual camera are recorded as pixels in the final image. The ray tracing algorithm scans every pixel in the camera's matrix and determines whether a photon would hit there and what color it should be. Lighting in the 3-D virtual world is a whole science unto itself. Just as in other fields of computer programming, there is a lot of things that humans take for granted that computer's don't. It takes a hell of a lot of work to create a realistic image on the computer that is both pleasant to look at and believable. In Pixar films, I believe they often hire a programmer to create virtual lighting for each individual character in the movie and another group of guys to do the lighting for the overall scene. Plus, there is a guy who is in charge of the overall lighting for everything so that everything blends together in the final product. It's a hell of a lot of work! If you want to try 3-D graphics and animation there is a program you can download for free. It's called "Blender". It runs on most computers made today and, if you learn how to use it well, you can create images and animations that are very similar to what Pixar does. http://www.blender.org The program is free for the download but, if you're not familiar with 3-D it can be frustrating to learn to use. The interface isn't very intuitive. But, once you learn it, you can do some really cool stuff! Take a look at the Blender Art Gallery. http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery/ Everything in there was made with Blender. I like to dabble with this program and I have used it to create a few things but nothing that is anywhere near as good as Pixar. But, one thing I know for sure! It's given me a new appreciation for what those guys at Pixar have to go through to make a movie!  |  IP: Logged Larry Myers Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Herndon, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 06-23-2008 03:23 PM                 Lighting is a skill that takes several years to learn. You really don't get good at it until you have about five full years of practice. Generally speaking in relationship to the subject photographed, a small light source gives contrasty light and a large light source gives a flat light. Some of those car ads in the late 70's such as the Chrysler Cordoba took light sources twice as large as the car.  |  IP: Logged

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