Lessons 5 : Lighting up an environment
Environment lighting in CGI in cinema is a crucial element for creating compelling and immersive virtual worlds.
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This course will focus on the techniques used in the film industry to create visually engaging environments.
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Table of Contents
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1. Importance of storytelling in an environment
2. Lighting techniques
3. Movie Analysis through CGI and Technological Evolution
4. Sources
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1. Importance of storytelling in an environment
Lighting plays an essential role in creating an immersive and convincing visual environment. Whether in the fields of cinematography, video games, virtual architecture, or augmented reality, lighting is a crucial component for establishing the atmosphere, highlighting details, and directing the viewer's attention. This lesson will delve deep into the importance of lighting in a virtual environment, as well as the challenges and key considerations associated with this discipline.
Influence on the Atmosphere Lighting has the power to define the ambiance of a virtual place. Warm hues can evoke warmth and comfort, while cold lights can create an atmosphere of mystery or tension.
Impact on Viewer Emotions The choice of lighting can influence the emotions experienced by the viewer. Soft and diffused light can create a calming atmosphere, while bright and contrasting illumination can generate excitement or tension.
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For example, chiaroscuro is a well-known technique in creating ambiance since the time of Caravaggio.
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Chiaroscuro is an artistic technique used in painting, photography, and cinema to create a strong contrast between areas of light and shadow within a composition. This technique emphasizes the dramatic contrast between illuminated parts and those in darkness, thus creating an intense and expressive atmosphere.
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Origins and History The term chiaroscuro originates from the French and literally means light-dark This technique was widely popularized by Renaissance painters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Chiaroscuro, who used chiaroscuro to give depth and dramatic intensity to their works.
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Application in Art In painting, chiaroscuro is often used to create a three-dimensional effect, giving the impression that objects are emerging from the canvas. Artists use strong contrasts between light and shadow to sculpt and add volume to shapes.
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Use in Photography In photography, chiaroscuro is employed to create artistic and dramatic images. It can be used to highlight subjects, create mysterious atmospheres, or evoke strong emotions. The sources of light, their placement, and intensity are carefully considered to achieve the desired effect.
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In Cinema In cinema, chiaroscuro is an essential cinematic technique. Directors and cinematographers use this method to create visually striking scenes, manipulate the audience's emotions, and emphasize specific plot elements. Iconic films like Orson Welles Citizen Kane and David Fincher's Seven are known for their masterful use of chiaroscuro.
Seven, 1996 , Â David Fincher
Citizen Kane, 1946, Orson Welles
Symbolism and Emotion Chiaroscuro can also be used symbolically to represent themes such as good and evil, light and darkness, or the duality of human nature. It has the power to create an immersive atmosphere that can evoke intense emotions in the viewer.
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In summary, chiaroscuro is a powerful artistic technique that has been used for centuries to add depth, dimension, and emotion to visual art. Whether in painting, photography, or cinema, this technique continues to play a crucial role in creating visually captivating and expressive works.
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Sfumato is also a widely used technique:
Sfumato is a pictorial technique developed and popularized by the renowned Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci. The term sfumato is derived from the Italian word "sfumare," which means to extinguish or to soften. This technique is particularly well-known for its use in portraiture, notably in the famous portrait of the Mona Lisa.
How Sfumato Works Sfumato involves the application of very thin and transparent layers of paint, creating subtle transitions between colors and tones. This method allows for soft edges and gently modulated forms, giving a sense of softness and realism to the painting.
Joconde,1503, Leonard De Vinci
Key Features of Sfumato:
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Soft Edges: Unlike sharp delineation of edges, sfumato emphasizes soft and gentle contours, providing a sense of realism and depth.
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Color Blending: It involves a subtle blending of colors, creating subtle tonal variations and an almost imperceptible transition from one color to another.
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Atmospheric Creation: Sfumato is often used to establish a soft, hazy, and evocative atmosphere. It is particularly effective for representing distant landscapes or scenes with diffused light.
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Three-Dimensional Effect: By blurring the edges, sfumato gives the impression that forms blend into space, thereby creating a three-dimensional effect.
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Application and Influence: Leonardo da Vinci employed sfumato in many of his works, including the Mona Lisa, where he used this technique to soften the contours of the face and create a gentle and enigmatic expression. Sfumato had a significant influence on other Renaissance artists and continued to inspire painters across the centuries.
Sfumato is a remarkable pictorial technique that helped shape the artistic approach of the Renaissance. Its subtle use of color and contour created works of striking depth and realism. Even today, sfumato is studied and admired for its ability to capture the essence and emotion of a subject, remaining a key element in the history of art.
2. Lighting techniques
There are two approaches to lighting: Artistic Lighting and Physical Lighting are two distinct approaches to illumination used in fields such as 3D, video games, cinema, and visual production in general. Here are the main differences between these two approaches:
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Artistic Lighting
Creativity and Artistic Intent Artistic lighting emphasizes creativity and artistic expression. Artists have greater freedom to choose colors, intensities, and light placements based on the mood and emotion they want to convey.
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Subjective Interpretation: Artists can subjectively interpret the scene. They can adjust the lighting to highlight specific elements or create visual effects that align with their artistic vision.
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Simplification and Stylization: Artistic lighting can sometimes simplify or stylize scenes to reinforce a particular visual style or add a unique artistic touch.
Creative Flexibility: It offers a high degree of flexibility in artistic choices, allowing artists to experiment and create unique visual atmospheres.
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Lego Batman,2017, Chris McKay
Lego Batman,2017, Chris McKay
Unlike realistic physical lighting, LEGO Batman uses more creative and unrealistic lighting. Light sources can appear exaggerated, and lighting can be used to emphasize comical elements or highlight the LEGO aspect of characters and environments. This is the perfect example of artistic lighting, the artists almost used pure values for certain lights. This is extremely rare and makes the film intensely colorful.
In RenderMan, you can change the color of your light as you wish in color mode (which is the artistic mode), but productions using physical lighting prohibit this parameter.
Physical Lighting
Based on Reality and Physics
Physical lighting is based on the laws of physics and aims to simulate the realistic behavior of light. It takes into account factors such as reflection, refraction, and diffusion.
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Photorealistic Rendering: It aims to produce photorealistic results by simulating the precise behavior of light in a given environment.
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Predictability and Consistency: Physical lighting results are generally more predictable and consistent in terms of light behavior because they are based on established physical models.
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Used in Realistic Production: It is often used in productions where precision and realism are crucial, such as visual effects in films, architectural simulations, and more.
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In summary, artistic lighting focuses on creative expression and subjective interpretation of light to create unique visual atmospheres, while physical lighting aims to accurately and realistically reproduce the behavior of light in the real world. The choice between these approaches depends on the artistic goals and realism requirements of a given project.
Pets, 2016, Â Chris Renaud
Pets, 2016, Â Chris Renaud
Even though Pets is an animated comedy, lighting is used to add a touch of realism to the animation through the use of physical lighting. Play of shadows and light contributes to giving the characters and environments a three-dimensional and credible appearance.
Here in RenderMan, if you enable the "enable temperature" parameter, you will have access to the physical temperature parameter. This allows you to recreate the natural colors and the light spectrum of a typical day, including the major hues found in Pets.
For Arnold it's the same workflow
Creating an Atmosphere:
As seen previously, chiaroscuro is one of the most effective ways to create a dramatic and tense atmosphere. Here are some examples in cinema.
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Chiaroscuro in Film:
Use in Cinema: Many directors have used chiaroscuro in iconic ways in their films. Here are some notable examples:
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The film Million Dollar Baby is a sports drama directed by Clint Eastwood in 2004. The film tells the story of an aspiring female boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald, portrayed by Hilary Swank, who is trained by an aging coach, played by Clint Eastwood, to become a boxing champion. The film explores themes such as determination, resilience, friendship, and personal sacrifices.
Chiaroscuro is a widely used lighting technique in the film to create dramatic and evocative visuals. This technique involves playing with strong contrasts between light and shadow to produce striking visual effects and enhance the emotional atmosphere of the scenes.
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Million Dollar Baby, 2004, Clint Eastwood
In Million Dollar Baby chiaroscuro is notably used to intensify the film's emotional depth. For example, during the boxing match scenes, chiaroscuro is employed to emphasize the intensity of the struggle and the characters' emotions. The contrasts between shadow and light heighten the dramatic tension of these crucial moments.
Chiaroscuro is also used in the film to create evocative imagery, particularly in scenes where the characters are deeply immersed in their thoughts or confronted with moral dilemmas. The interplay of shadow and light underscores the dark and introspective nature of these key moments in the story.
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Ultimately, chiaroscuro in Million Dollar Baby is a powerful visual element that contributes to the emotional impact of the film by creating memorable images and enhancing the depth of the characters and the plot.
Million Dollar Baby, 2004, Clint Eastwood
Million Dollar Baby, 2004, Clint Eastwood
In summary, chiaroscuro is a powerful cinematic technique that can profoundly influence the visual experience of a film. When used skillfully, it can contribute to creating memorable images and reinforcing the themes and emotions of a story.
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Volumetric Effect in CGI:
Volumetric effects are highly significant for creating ambiance and adding intention in scenes that allow for it. PxrVolume is a shader used in the RenderMan rendering engine developed by Pixar Animation Studios. It is specially designed to handle volumetric effects in the creation of special effects and animations.
Key Features of PxrVolume:
Volumetric Effect Management:
PxrVolume is primarily used to render volumetric effects such as smoke, fog, clouds, and more. It simulates how light interacts with these elements.
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Precise Control of Volume Properties:
It offers precise control over various volume properties, including density, color, emission, scattering, and dispersion.
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Light and Transparency Effects:
It simulates the effects of light passing through a volume, creating radiance and light diffusion effects within the volume.
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Generation of Shades and Gradients:
It allows for the generation of various shades and gradients within volumes, which is essential for representing realistic atmospheric elements.
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Compatibility with Other RenderMan Shaders:
It can be used in conjunction with other RenderMan shaders to create complex and realistic visual effects.
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Suited for Pyrotechnic Effects:
It is often used in the creation of pyrotechnic effects, such as explosions, flames, and gases.
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Common Uses: PxrVolume is frequently used in the film, animation, and visual effects industry to create realistic volumetric effects. It is particularly useful for representing outdoor environments like the atmosphere, clouds, smoke, and other natural phenomena.
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PxrVolume is a powerful tool in Pixar's RenderMan rendering engine that enables artists to create convincing and realistic volumetric effects. Its use is crucial in the production of special effects and animations for films, television series, and other visual projects.
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Renderman Worflow :
It is important to create a cube that will be transformed into a pxr volume. And leave the render cam outside the cube.
select the created cube and press this icon to generate the pxr volume
Result with density = 0.002
The pxr volume parameters will open. It's best to set a very basic value to get a correct pxr volume value density = 1 is extremely high, I recommend 0.002 on average.
This video explains in detail how to manage volumetric effects :
Here we can see the workflow on Houdini which is super interesting :
Arnold Workflow :
Arnold's aiAtmosphereVolume is similar to Renderman's pxr volume.
Start by creating a default scene with a light. Then open the setting window and find environment.
Click on the small square and validate aiAtmosphereVolume
You can also access the parameter in the HyperShade like Renderman.
To access the volume parameter, go to the arnold setting center and press aiAtmosphereVolume. This window will appear. The default density value is 0, not 1 as in Renderman.Â
Result density = 0.208
We note a major difference with Renderman. The volume is not linked to an msh but interacts throughout the scene, which is generally more optimized.
This video summarizes what we saw in greater detail :
Warm Lighting :
Warm lighting is very interesting, it allows to make a richer and agreable lighting to see. It is often used on sun set sun rise scenes in general to complicate lighting. It creates a burr in the edges of shadows.
Pets, 2016, Â Chris Renaud
Mario, (2023), Illumination Studio
The warmedge is also called double sun. Because we duplicate the light from the sun and have just made it bigger to give it a warmer color and thus impact the shadows. Chris Brejon explains it well in its documentation with the example of Pets.
We can see the halo of orange that complicates the shadow
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Little Light (main)
Big Light (color)
HDRI :
The hdri va allows to project an image in 360° to recover the light interaction of an environment. It is very interesting to have more natural variation in its lighting. Combined with lights the lighting will be more alive. It is important to have only the sky in the hdri. The sun must be generated in CGI with a distant light to have total control over its light.
HDRI by Poly Haven
3. Movie Analysis through CGI and Technological Evolution
Avatar (2009)
Avatar is a science fiction film directed by James Cameron, released in 2009. It revolutionized the film industry in terms of CGI for several reasons:
Motion Capture (Mo-Cap) Technology: Avatar used cutting-edge motion capture technology to create entirely digital characters that appeared incredibly realistic. This technology allowed actors to interact seamlessly with virtual environments and creatures.
Visual Realism: The film introduced an unprecedented level of visual realism at the time. The alien worlds of Pandora were incredibly detailed and immersive, providing a unique visual experience for viewers.
Use of 3D: Avatar was one of the first films to extensively and immersively utilize 3D technology. This added an extra dimension to the cinematic experience and paved the way for the popularization of 3D in film.
Box Office Performance: "Avatar" was a massive commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time (until surpassed by "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019). This demonstrated to studios that there was a huge market for films utilizing new technologies.
Impact on the Film Industry: The success of "Avatar" prompted many other studios to heavily invest in cutting-edge technologies for creating advanced special effects. This stimulated innovation and the continuous improvement of CGI techniques.
Impact on Production Standards: The success of "Avatar" changed audience expectations for visual quality and immersion. Many other films have since sought to match or exceed the standards set by the film.
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Enduring Legacy: Even years after its release, "Avatar" continues to influence the film industry by encouraging the development of new technologies and inspiring many directors to explore the boundaries of what is possible in terms of CGI.
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In summary, Avatar (2009) marked a turning point in cinema history by pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved with CGI technology, creating an immersive and revolutionary cinematic experience
Avatar, 2009, James Cameron
The environments of Avatar stand out as one of the film's most remarkable achievements in terms of CGI. Here are some specific details about the creation and impact of Pandora's environments:
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Pandora: Pandora is the fictional planet where the plot of Avatar unfolds. The environments of Pandora are extremely diverse, ranging from lush bioluminescent forests to floating mountains, swamps, and oceans. Each environment was meticulously designed to showcase a variety of unique flora and fauna.
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Bioluminescent Flora: One of the most distinctive elements of Pandora is the bioluminescent flora that illuminates the planet at night. Plants and trees emit their own light, creating a dazzling and mysterious visual spectacle.
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Fantastic Creatures: Pandora's environments are inhabited by a variety of astonishing and imaginative creatures. Animals like banshees, thanators, and giant hexapods add a dimension of life to the planet's ecosystem.
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Seamless Integration: One of the major challenges was creating seamless integration between computer-generated environments and live-action filmed actors. Motion capture technology was used to allow actors to move and interact naturally with these digital environments.
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Dynamic Weather Effects: Pandora's environments experience dynamic weather phenomena, such as torrential rains and electrical storms. These elements were integrated realistically, adding an additional layer of realism.
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Monumental Scale: Some environments, like the floating mountains, are of monumental scale and defy the laws of physics. Creating these grandiose landscapes was a true CGI tour de force.
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Visual Immersion: The environments of Pandora were designed to fully immerse the viewer in the world of the planet. The richness of details, textures, and visual effects contributed to creating a captivating and memorable cinematic experience.
The attention to detail and the level of realism achieved in the creation of Pandora's environments were key elements that contributed to making Avatar a milestone in the history of special effects and CGI in film. They also influenced many other films by showcasing the possibilities offered by advanced technologies in creating digital environments.
Avatar, 2009, James Cameron
Avatar 2, 2022, James Cameron
A technological revolution Other filmmakers before him had already experimented with 3D, such as Alfred Hitchcock in the 1950s. "What changed in the dimensionality is the fact that 'Avatar' was shot digitally and not on film," explains Julien Dupuy from the Capture Mag podcast. "That's what allowed them to have such high-performing 3D," he adds.
So theaters equipped themselves to embrace this revolution. It was a costly investment, ultimately yielding few prosperous years in terms of attendance. But according to Marc-Olivier Sebbag, the general manager of the French National Federation of Cinemas (FNCF), there is no regret to be had. "Was it a good thing or a bad thing? In any case, it happened," he asserts.
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Thanks to this change, "cinema operators switched to digital projectors, which also allowed for a lot of technical progress and flexibility in terms of screening that didn't exist before," he emphasizes. Film releases thus become technically simpler: no need to transport reels.
Avatar 2, 2022, James Cameron
This re-release of Avatar on Wednesday, September 21, 2023, offers another innovation: HFR, which stands for "High Frame Rate," meaning not just 24 frames per second as before, but more, since there is no longer the physical constraint of film. "It's a completely astonishing experience," notes Julien Dupuy. "It's a total rediscovery of the medium." This technology has already been tested for a few rare films, like The Hobbit in 2012 (48fps) or Life of Pie (120fps), but it will fully unleash its potential in December 2022 with Avatar 2 (48 fps,HFR).
The Hobbit, 2013, Peter Jackson
Life of Pie, 2012, Ang Lee
The High Frame Rate Avatar 2 (48fps, HFR)
Avatar 2, 2022, James Cameron
This video is very interesting we see how they proceeded for the mocap and other tools developed for the movie Avatar 2 :
The Mandalorian (Series, 2019 - Present)
Real-Time Lighting with Unreal Engine: Explore the innovative use of Unreal Engine to generate realistic CGI environments with interactive lighting.
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Stagecraft is a technology developed by the special effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for the television series "The Mandalorian." It is a major innovation that is revolutionizing the way visual productions are created.
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The Mandalorian (2016-present), Lucasfilm, ILM
Key Features of Stagecraft: Virtual Backdrops:
Stagecraft utilizes large LED backdrops, capable of displaying digital environments in real-time. This allows actors and the production team to work in virtual sets without the need to construct real-life stages. Interactivity and Responsiveness:
The backdrops are designed to be interactive, meaning they can be adjusted in real-time based on camera movements. This enables the creation of dynamic and responsive environments.
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Dynamic Lighting: The illumination of actors and set elements is seamlessly integrated with the virtual environment. The lighting is adjusted in real-time to match the virtual light source.
Reduction of On-Site Shooting Needs: Thanks to this technology, many scenes that would otherwise require on-site shooting can be created in a studio, providing an unparalleled level of control and flexibility.
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Efficiency Gains: Stagecraft reduces the need for travel to remote or challenging locations, potentially saving time and resources.
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Benefits of Stagecraft for "The Mandalorian":
Creation of Extraordinary Environments: The technology enables the team to create incredibly detailed and realistic virtual worlds, expanding storytelling possibilities.
Shooting Flexibility: Scenes can be shot quickly and easily in a controlled environment, facilitating retakes and adjustments.
Immersion for Actors: Actors can immerse themselves more deeply in the series' universe as they interact with visual sets that correspond to the final product.
Cost Savings: While the initial setup of a Stagecraft set can be expensive, it can lead to long-term cost reductions related to travel and physical set construction.
Impact on the Film and Television Industry: Stagecraft technology has had a significant impact on the entertainment industry by enabling more efficient and immersive productions. Many other productions have begun to explore the use of similar technologies for their own projects. Stagecraft has paved the way for new possibilities in visual storytelling.
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This video shows the process and principles of Stagecraft it's super interesting :
I hope this lesson has served you well !