Environment lighting tips or tutorials?
Hey guys, can anyone recommend any good articles, tutorials or interesting reading specifically on environment lighting??
In particular, I'm working on an outdoor scene right now, but I'd be interested in reading anything that was specifically aimed at lighting environments, and the artistic side of environment lighting (rather than just technical know-how). Stuff like how to get different moods (eg. happy or scary), color schemes (eg. night compared to day), how traditional 3 point lighting rigs are applied outdoors, types of environment lighting rigs etc etc... Anything relevant or interesting. I find a lot of lighting information is aimed at film, and more specifically, at the lighting of actors/characters with little thought given to the backgrounds. I've always gotten by in the past, but I'd definitely love to grow my environment lighting skills.
If you're an experienced environment lighter, do you have any tips or timesavers? How did you learn your craft? What is your workflow? What games have impressed you specifically by their awesome lighting of their environments?
Hoping to learn something new, and the polycount wiki is thoroughly lacking on any enviro lighting info
In particular, I'm working on an outdoor scene right now, but I'd be interested in reading anything that was specifically aimed at lighting environments, and the artistic side of environment lighting (rather than just technical know-how). Stuff like how to get different moods (eg. happy or scary), color schemes (eg. night compared to day), how traditional 3 point lighting rigs are applied outdoors, types of environment lighting rigs etc etc... Anything relevant or interesting. I find a lot of lighting information is aimed at film, and more specifically, at the lighting of actors/characters with little thought given to the backgrounds. I've always gotten by in the past, but I'd definitely love to grow my environment lighting skills.
If you're an experienced environment lighter, do you have any tips or timesavers? How did you learn your craft? What is your workflow? What games have impressed you specifically by their awesome lighting of their environments?
Hoping to learn something new, and the polycount wiki is thoroughly lacking on any enviro lighting info
Replies
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hourences The Hows & Whys of Level Design is the one you want.
Anyone else?
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/view.php?pg=leveldesignsample
(sorry for the link to another forum - hope its not against the rules?)
Can anyone confirm if this is the *entire* lighting chapter?
this article is pretty awesome and really has some interesting technical info in there as well.
When lighting enviros I tend to kinda paint with color/value to make the composition look awesome and add some light sources that look believable to have that particular amount of light bouncing around rather than go for the one light prop one light placed, which can tend to look kind of spotty in some cases.
focus on mood, color and composition and you should get something half decent. also, using reference for something similar or inspiring is a good way to start.
Here's a couple suggestions, probably not the best but ones I found helpful:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Photography-Art-Seeing-Perception-Workshop/dp/1554079802/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317085309&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.com/Photography-Art-Seeing-Perception-Workshop/dp/1554079802/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317085309&sr=1-1[/ame]
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Day-Country-Impression-French-Landscape/dp/0875871186/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317084733&sr=1-4"]http://www.amazon.com/Day-Country-Impression-French-Landscape/dp/0875871186/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317084733&sr=1-4[/ame]
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Photography-Approach-Personal-Expression/dp/1933952687/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317084673&sr=1-3"]http://www.amazon.com/Art-Photography-Approach-Personal-Expression/dp/1933952687/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317084673&sr=1-3[/ame]
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting-Rendering-Jeremy-Birn/dp/0321316312"]http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting-Rendering-Jeremy-Birn/dp/0321316312[/ame]
http://www.erco.com/products/download/index/index_3620/en/en_index_dltut_1.php
Be sure to check out the Printed Media section, there are a bunch of PDFs that go into great detail about architectural lighting, especially this one.