Starting to size the models that I have created with the characters. Luc is about 6'4"

Steve

He does look big!

He needs a hat.

Hi Gene, Luc does have hair have not rendered it yet.

Robert i will scale items up and him down

Ok the Coffee shop looks to be ok, heighth and width wise, with characters in place

Good looking set! That will be tricky to light.

Looking extremely good, Steve!

Thanks David and Robert!

Robert you are correct. I have been reading about how to light your 3d movie! Not going to be easy

steve

I recall reading an article that claimed studios such as Dreamworks employ many more Lighting technicians than they do animators and that makes sense to me. Personally, I think the article was implying Technical Directors as a whole but the point was made... Lighting is a very important, if not tedious, aspect of a movie and takes many hands and/or hours to perfect.

While I am certainly no expert my own approach at present would be to add an Action to the Set in Question specifically for the Lighting. Then the Action can be adjust/replaced/saved/duplicated as necessary to control a variety of lighting effects. Personally, I just like how smoothly Lights seem to be manipulated in an Action. The only downside that comes to mind is that while looking at a Chor and adjusting the light in an Action, the Chor will not always update to reflect changes in the Action.

As much of your Set's lighting will not change you should do well with having an Action light your scene.
In my estimation you'll want to explore having the lightbulbs brightness be controlled not by lights but through the surfaces ambiance intensity. A mild but wide glow might then spread that lighting throughout the scene. Without ambient surfaces you may easily hit the practical limit where additional lighting will be useful in your scene.

In my estimation, the most important aspect of lighting concerns the Focus; where you want the viewer's attention to be.
All other aspects of composition (of which lighting is an essential part) should support and accentuate that focus.
This is one of the reasons why initial Lighting is often accomplished using untextured grayscale objects in a scene.
The lighting is then further refined (and finalized) after texturing to ensure Clarity.

If really leaning forward you may want to control your Lighting *after* the rendering.
For this, consider how the use of .EXR format and Light Buffers may allow you the opportunity to adjust the lighting in your scene even after you have rendered it. A little planning and experimentation with .EXR from the very beginning may save you a lot of hours, headaches and adjustments later.

Thanks Rodney, excellent points! You bring up some very good things that I have been reading about.

I have found in watching all the 3d animated movies over the years the ones that take the extra time to light the scenes are the ones I love. Sure the story captures you but when you go back and watch them again, the technical aspect of the scene pull you further into the story and lighting has a huge part.

Here is a shot with some issues.

The first is AO, the second is fastAO and the third is a generic shot. What is causing the light around the arms?

Steve

That's an interesting one.

My first thought was that it was an effect of the Subsurface scattering but I've seen some similar effects with AO with negative settings. What would be odd about that would be that it should effect the rest of the model as well.

At one time AO and SSS did not play well with each other. Perhaps that is what you are seeing here.

Does the third image (generic shot) use any AO?
If not then I'd investigate the Ambiance of the skin color and/or the settings of the Choreography's environmental Glow.

I've seen this quite a bit. This is where the SSS geometry intersects with other SSS geometry. They can't be touching each other. I don't know if this is a bug or not.

OK Mark that makes sense. I will re render with and see if get this again.

I noticed that when I render sss without AO and added a light the sss did not cause the light around the skin. When I added ao and fastao, any sss skin of the same character that intersected with itself tended to have a glow around it. If however, I intersected with another character I did not have the glow and the skin surface.

Two examples. One with intersecting sss skin without ao and one with. There is no glow on either hand.

I'm curious, if you set the arms in separate groups, would you get the glowing effect?

Hey Mark that is a good thought and will see if that works. They only problem is the spline rong where the two skin groups join, it usually has a dark ring. But I will try that in a few minutes.

Mark

That seems to have worked. Here is a shot. I also turned off the light that I had added.

Steve

Cupid calling in sick

Steve

Thanks for your patience as I upload some shots of the characters. I am mainly testing the rig, so bare with me.

Steve

The coffee shop looks awesome Steve, and your characters are so interesting. I enjoy seeing your progress.

thanks Kat

Here is Ted walking

looks good

Thanks Kat!!

Here is a shot of the two together. The rig is working very well


Steve

PM in flight mode

Looking good! Can't wait to see what 'tomfoolery' you have planned for us at the coffee shop.

Your characters have come along way. I also can't wait to see what happens .

Thanks Matt and Jeff!

Started Modeling the street scene

Steve

Steve, this is looking very nice!

Playing with Jason's default chor

Steve

Great Stuff!!!

Thanks. Remembering 9-11

Steve

One more before the night is out

Now that Rear window project is being completed, it was good to see some old friends. What I learned on the forum project will help a great deal with Cupid

Steve

they look great!

The rear window project energized me to get things going again. I have been working on small things to help with the movement of the characters. I found issues with weights of some of the rigs I installed. Basically cleaning up things. I am doing a practice animation now. Lots of things going. I will start a new thread once I get further and get some critics