Final Jungle Lighting - SET 1

Since performing the jungle lighting tests, Myself and Rob reviewed the idea and finalised it for the actual first jungle set. I knew that the intensity of the directional lights were way too harsh for the foreground part of the composition, but the effect of the strong sunlight on the bump mapped trees and background bushes worked really well. We changed the directional intensity from 2.4 to 0.9, this gave a much more balance light effect throughout the whole composition. The total lights in this part of the jungle set are - one main spot light (foreground) two small, low intensity spotlights, one directional light and one ambient light with an attached EnviroFog connection. The fog gives depth to the scene, darkening and blurring distant areas of the jungle environment, and emphasies the (directional light) sunlight pockets. We cut more holes into the ceiling plane above so that there were more dramatic shafts of light falling upon the surrounding vegetation and one to highlight the explorer chararcter. The idea of placing the leaves around the cut holes in the ceiling plane was carried forward from my previous lighting tests, this successsfully created the illusion of the sunlight travelling through a dence leafy canopy above (and removed the need for modelling a very high polygon jungle canopy!). As can be seen from the render images below the overall atmosphere created was great, and almost perfectly mirrors the jungle I visualised during the pitching process and pre-production.

Maya Render showing finalised shot composition and lighting. EnviroFog used with Saturation Distance 70, main diectional spot light for sunlight, three spot lights, one to draw audience focus to map/sofa area. (Render Time - 1min 50 secs with Maya Software Rendering).

Maya Render showing background light details. We placed the lights so that the directional light fell over leaf tips and tree bark, defibatley gives the shot/environment depth. This shot was taken from the final animated camera movemnet. The directional light intensity has been redued to 0.9, plus a soft spot light placed to illuminate the background slightly. (Render Time - 1 min 42 secs with Maya Software Rendering).

There was one technical hitch that we came across, which mean't that the rays of foggy sun light couldnt be added to the composition. Due to the limitations of Maya software rendering, creating actual 3D fog and lightrays wasn't possible, Mental Ray wasn't an option as we planned a productive and tight rendering schedule and so we decided to use a simple 2D idea using alpha channeled coloured rays created in Photoshop. The method created mixed results, either the rays were too transparent that you couldnt notice them or they were to opaque and set looked polluted and smoggy. Large amounts of time couldnt be wasted this close to rendering deadlines just on creating light rays, therefore myself and rob made the decision to scrap the idea. To save time and to keep lighting constistancy, the same lights used in Jungle Set 1 will be imported into Jungle Set 2 (path and river area), the lights will just be moved and tweaked to accomodate particular environment and chararcter focus points within the different areas of the next jungle set.