Finalised Lighting In Jungle Set - 2

Myself and rob finally finished the lighting for the main jungle path run animation, the only bit left to do is to finalise the lighting for the Jungle canopy establishing shot. Apart from that the seven camera shots including the two tracking cameras showing the front of the explorer running are ready to be rendered. And the final lighting result is amazing! im so pleased with the way we completed the lighting, it tooks some very late nights but the result has been well worth the effort. My idea using the ceiling plane and directional light really creates a dramatic look and feel in the set, together with the leaf shallows on the floor, a stylistic but in a way, realistic effect is created. The bump maps on the tree bark highlighted by the directional light above, the dark foggy shadows really help contrast the pockets of light.

The same lights that myself and rob created when lighting jungle set 1 were imported into the jungle set 2 file. Two spot lights, ambient with EnviroFog connection, and 1 directional light, we tweaked the spot lights, highlighted specific areas and modelled loads of extra holes into the new ceiling plane. The ambient really helped lighting the explorers facial features when the lighting got too dark in places, infact for the tracking run we parented the ambient and fog node to the tracking camera, so that the lighing on his front and the fog saturation distance from camera stayed consistant we travel thoughout the set. A large amount of time was spent positioning the light pockets so that the explorer would run between them creating splashes of sunlight accross his face as he runs. Below show some of my favourite lighting compositions that Myself and Rob worked on for the second Jungle Set:

Final render of Static Camera 3 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 4 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Tracking Camera 1 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob. When we were test rendering the tracking shots, we found that the explorers face would be visible and then move into complete darkness, to balance out the effects of this dramatic lighting we created a low intensity ambient light, changed its relationship with the set off and only affect the character. This created a sublte highlight on his face. And another trick we devised was parenting the main ambient and EnviroFog node to the tracking camera. This meant that as we moved throught the set, the fog saturation distance remained a constant distance from the camera nad character. Therefore removing the problem of the explorer travelling into denser fog.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 1 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Tracking Camera 2 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 6 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob. We decided to add the fallen tree to match Dan's run cycle and small jump over some bushes, the environment was slightly too plain and needed something extra, proberly one of my personal favourites.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)