Week 6

 Again, week 6 was extremely productive. 

I started the week looking over my scene and ultimately deciding that I wasn't happy with the lighting at all. So, in order to fix this, I went back and rebuilt the scene on a blank level, just to ensure I could get the effect I wanted.

 

 

 

The first step was to create the new level and set it as the main map; an easy fix that I did after deleting the unused maps in the starter content menu. Then, as my scene is centered around a photographer, I looked up how photograpy studio lighting was set up, resulting in me researching Three-Point lighting setups and how they are used, which is as follows: 

 

(A) Key Light 

The key light is as described; providing most of the illumination for the scene and as such providing the scene's overall vibe through colour and angle (dark and creepy, light and cheery, warm and cozy, etc.) It is normally positioned to the side of the object and slightly upwards pointing down.

(B) Fill Light

This light is similar to the key light, but it provides extra illumination for the shaded portions of the subject. It is usually eye-level with the subject, on the opposite side of the to the Key Light, but is around half of the brightness of the Key Light. Most often it is either white, or a warmer hue, depending on the feeling the photographer is aiming for. 

(C) Back Light

Also known as a Rim Light, Hair Light, or Shoulder Light, this light adds highlights to the model from behind, hitting just the rear edges of the model to give a sense of depth and also do make the subject stand out from the background

 With this in mind, I researched the source material [Read: I played Life is Strange] and decided to base the lighting on this scene: 

 

 

In choosing this locaiton and setting, there were a few things that were an absolute must to include. The first was the God Rays coming through the window; something I was told was easy to do in Unreal and would take an hour, tops, for me to figure out.

 

Another was that, ultimately, the context of the game has this room being very messy, belonging to the character on the left, who is the very definition of a rebellious teenage punk. So inkeeping with that, I need to include dust in my scene. 

 

But first, I had to set my lighting up. 

 

I brought in three Directional lights in Unreal, setting each of them to coincide with the diagram I made, and then took another look at the reference. I used coolors.co/image-picker to create a pallette of colours to work with, and then took to making a warm lighting setup that was backlit with a slightly purple-blue hue to highlight the butterfly on top of the camera.

 

After that, the Volumetric fog needed to be fixed, which gave me the smooth gradient from grey to black in the backhround and as such would hide the floor plane underneath my scene. I did this by using the eyedropper tool to get the exact colour of my floor plane to match the fog, then changed the density to get the result you see below.
 

 

I was extremely happy with how that looked, but then moved on to the God Rays, knowing I wanted these to cast window-like bars across the model. 

 

I had to look up a tutorial for this, as I am not well versed with Unreal Engine. However, it was a simple trick to learn, in which three (or however many 'slats' are needed) cubes are brought into the workspace, scaled along the Y axis (or the X if doing slatted blinds, for example). Then, behind those, I placed a directional light. I then turned on the Light Shaft Occlusion option, and the Light Shaft Bloom.

 

Then, I went back to the cubes I created, set them to 'Hidden in Game', and pressed the G Key, which took away the editor Gizmos and Pivots. 

 

 

That, I felt, was enough work for the week as it was Sunday night. However, the plan for next week is to get the dust into the scene, rebuild my lighting, and get my final renders.