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View Full Version : Subway tunnel lighting.

DanielWray
09-15-2010, 12:19 PM
Hey all,

I'm lighting some shots of an underground subway, it's a main tunnel section (as opposed to the small open sections), the overall feeling for the shot(s) is meant to be a sense of weight, and speed. The weight of the train travelling at great speed.

The camera placement will mostly be at wheel level, as to give an imposing view looking up at the train, however the lighting for this area will come from bright blue/ white electric sparks, and bright orange/ yellow sparks from the wheels, and track.

For the moment I'm just concentrating on the environment lighting, and this is where I could use some feedback.

I've limited myself to spot lamps with buffer shadows, each light has its own group, each group consists of several large (soft) diffuse lamps, a short (bright) lamp, and several bounce lamps.

I'm using Aqsis as well, so if there are any tips for lighting with RenderMan type renderers then please let me know, I'm interested in having in camera glare (making use of stencil textures), and things like projection stencils (not sure what the real name is, but think of a stencil pattern for a flash light).

Thanks,

Dan.

EDIT: Some of the light fittings aren't in the scene yet, like the lights which will cast the soft red light, materials aren't applied either(no sl material shaders).
playmesumch00ns
09-16-2010, 12:30 PM
It's not a bad start. You obviously want to add a row of utility lamps along the opposite side of the tunnel wall too. Then when you add specular reflections to your train shader you'll get some interesting highlights running along the surface. Make sure to perturb your train's surface a bit to break those highlights up.

From here I'd add some overhead lights as well, then add lights from the train interior casting out onto the tunnel. Once you've done all that I'll think you'll find that your existing utility lamps are a bit bright and spread too much.
rendermaniac
09-16-2010, 01:12 PM
I'm using Aqsis as well, so if there are any tips for lighting with RenderMan type renderers then please let me know, I'm interested in having in camera glare (making use of stencil textures), and things like projection stencils (not sure what the real name is, but think of a stencil pattern for a flash light).


The word you are looking for is a gobo. You might want to project some light from the interior onto the walls as well. If you are doing any blooming, then do it in 2D - it is a 2d film / sensor effect anyway.

It might be worth making the shading on the lights a bit more complex. Normally vehicle lights have quite complex reflections and refractions (might be difficult to do without raytracing).

The lighting looks pretty nice though.

Simon
DanielWray
09-16-2010, 02:18 PM
Thanks guys, very useful advice.

I wasn't planning on having utilities lights on both sides, but having high-lights would really add to the scene, so thanks man, I'll certainly experiment with that.

Gobo! that's it, thanks.

There will be light coming from the interior, I haven't started any work in that area yet though, and yes I would like to have bloom and a number of various lighting effects. I was thinking of doing glare in camera, I'm not sure if Aqsis can make use of camera shader's, but I'll have to talk to the TD about that :p

I'll really have to speak to the TD about the shading models on the lights, since I don't have a good grasp on writing shader's, if you are referring to the actual meshes then they currently don't have a custom shader, just a MOSAIC shader with high emittance.

I'll post more updates soon.

Thanks again guys.
xeltestic
09-27-2010, 07:57 PM
Don't know what kind of look u r going for, but i stumbled on this pic and remembered reading your post.
http://de.img.seen.by/user/robert-goetzfried/img/h384/31.jpg
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