Lighting Artist Question

nick2730

Hey Guys, i want to create a lighting artist portfolio as its really become a love of mine beyond environments. Where do you get the content to light?

DO you just ask people for their scenes and light them ?

PixelMasher

there are a ton of assets in cryengine or udk that you can use to quickly compose scenes and then do a wicked lighting pass on them. that could be a good starting point.

adam

If I were to build a lighting portfolio, I'd also build the environments I am lighting. That is not indicative of what you'd be doing in your job as a lighter, but it shows you a.) take initiative and b.) have more skills beyond being a lighter.

poopinmymouth

I had the benefit of transitioning to lighting on the job, so I did not have to create a lighting portfolio, but I would ask to join in on a mod with a talented environment artist. Also do not underestimate the benefit of playing with real world lighting equipment. It has helped my virtual lighting immensely. If there is a nearby photography school you can pay a fee and have access to their lighting equipment and studio, DO IT.

Andreas

?? Wouldn't you just light the environments in your folio? You have a few nice ones there.

nick2730

Andreas wrote: »

?? Wouldn't you just light the environments in your folio? You have a few nice ones there.

I could but i feel my environment art is not up to par with current standard and wanted to light a professional environment. Just just probing to see how other did it

SHEPEIRO

poops is right...

if i was you i would try some block out lighting... show off what you can do WITHOUT a nicely textured environment...

lighting is all about composition, colour and intensity... ive done a fair bit of "lighting concept" take a very simple scene blocked in and try and give it as much atmosphere and life as you can with just the lights tell storys etc without the textures and detailed meshes but still allow the simple scene to be read easily and well.

and yes as a lighting artist you need to be able to build what your lighting as levels often need "tweaks" to get the lighting design to work so showing you can do that too is a must

also you need to know your shaders and your materials... read up on physical characteristics (and physically based lighting values) of materials if you havent and apply that too your work... knowing that you need to use fresnel on plastic and knowing what fresnel value plastic has in reality can lead to a world of difference

nick2730

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

poops is right...

if i was you i would try some block out lighting... show off what you can do WITHOUT a nicely textured environment...

lighting is all about composition, colour and intensity... ive done a fair bit of "lighting concept" take a very simple scene blocked in and try and give it as much atmosphere and life as you can with just the lights tell storys etc without the textures and detailed meshes but still allow the simple scene to be read easily and well.

and yes as a lighting artist you need to be able to build what your lighting as levels often need "tweaks" to get the lighting design to work so showing you can do that too is a must

also you need to know your shaders and your materials... read up on physical characteristics (and physically based lighting values) of materials if you havent and apply that too your work... knowing that you need to use fresnel on plastic and knowing what fresnel value plastic has in reality can lead to a world of difference

thats a great idea, thanks

Penetralia

Hm! Well the stuff that got me in as a lighting artist is my renders in maya. Although you wont encounter this much in a game engine, you might want to explore something like mental ray, vray,etc.... I can tell you now it will be nothing like lighting for a game engine but it will put you in a certain mind set and help you understand some fundamental concepts for lighting. Lighting can really help sell the mood in an environment so try and push that to the limit for your lighting. Show that you can lighting a sunny, spring afternoon as well as a cold and dark claustrophobic room. Lighting is one of the key things in a game that tells the player where to go, make sure when you are lighting you have an idea of what you want to draw attention to. Also photography: learn it. It will help a lot with composition.
I should mention although I encouraged learning mental ray keep in mind that most games don't have technology that is nearly as flexible as that. Most of the time you are going to have to place the lights yourself one by one so it is really important to understand concepts like 3 point lighting.

Penetralia

lol I may have given you more information than you bargained for- not many people I know specifically -want- to do lighting so I got excited. Here's a link to some free scenes you can light...
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/

nick2730

Penetralia wrote: »

lol I may have given you more information than you bargained for- not many people I know specifically -want- to do lighting so I got excited. Here's a link to some free scenes you can light...
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/

super sweet thanks. I can export all of these into UDK or a game engine

Eric Chadwick

This article in the News section had some good info about the lighting in Halo 4. That game has some really good lighting.
http://www.polycount.com/2012/11/20/the-environment-art-of-halo-4/