Lighting Design in CG

I recorded a talk about how to design lighting in CG and create (hopefully!) good looking images.

We are looking at references, techniques that classic and modern art painters used and how to transfer them to CG, how real world photography works and how that translates to CG. We will look at the importance of values and how to guide the viewer through our image so that we can tell stories with our lighting. We’ll also discuss some technical bits whenever it can help us to make educated guesses, some tricks and tips on how to work around certain limitations that we might encounter, and excursions to cameras, lookdev and compositing to help us with our lighting.

Just so you can get a better sense of what to expect, here are the individual chapters that we will talk about:

• References: How modern art can influence CG
• Camera Excursion
• Exposure/Stops: Making meaningful change
• Rendering/Compositing/Breakdown
• What color does moonlight have?
• How to get a technically correct dome/IBL
• Chiaroscuro: Creating contrast
• Practical Lights
• Fibonacci composition
• Values: Guiding the viewer
• Hero Lighting: Storytelling with lighting
• Lookdev Excursion
• Evaluating Lighting
• Rim Lights and when to use them