Stylized Planning

Thus far, we’ve lit scenes that match real-world locations or otherwise follow real-world lighting conventions. In contrast, creating stylized lighting frees you from those bounds. Nevertheless, it’s important to plan out the lighting. As such, you can break the goals of stylized lighting into one or more of the following categories:

Generating a Mood

As discussed in earlier chapters, lighting can inspire specific moods. For example, lighting used for horror, science-fiction, and fantasy projects often uses unusual light placement, low-key lighting, and unnatural colors to create a sense of dread and foreboding (Figures 7.1 and 7.2).

Mood can also apply to the characters themselves. For example, you can communicate a character’s mental state with the non-realistic placement of lights and shadows (Figures 7.3 and 7.4).

“Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.” —H. P. Lovecraft

Creating a Tribute to Other Art Forms

You can use lighting to copy the unique style of another art form. For example, you can light a scene to mimic a particular school of art, the bold simplicity of illustration, or the colorful nature of abstract painting (Figure 7.5, 7.6, and 7.7)

Creating a Visually Unconventional Look

Stylized lighting is sometimes applied to create an aesthetic that has simply not been seen before. In addition, the aesthetic might serve the dual function of creating unique art and supplying symbolism to the story. This might involve the application of unusual colors in a more traditional lighting context (Figures 7.8 and 7.9).

3D animated films and video games, by their very nature, are fantastic. Nevertheless, they are often lit in a conventional way that follows the general rules of real-world lighting (Figure 7.10). Nevertheless, it’s possible to exaggerate the lighting so that it appears stylistic (Figure 7.11).

Establishing a Parallel World or Timeline

Stylized lighting can help establish a storyline that is out of sync with the main plot. For example, you might use stylized lighting for flashbacks or flash forwards. You can also use the lighting to indicate parallel worlds, such as those represented by dream sequences (Figure 7.12 and 7.13) or unearthly locations (alien planets, heaven, hell, and so on).

Stylized 3D Examples

We can return to scenes featured elsewhere in this book and replace the lighting so that it becomes more stylistic. For example, in Figure 7.14, the house model first featured in Chapter 4 is re-lit. The background sky plane is removed, revealing empty black behind the house. This creates the illusion of night time. Instead of using a directional light to emulate moon light, two spotlights are added with a purple color and a narrow cone angle. One spot is aimed at the back corner of the pool and one is aimed at the side wall at the right side of the frame (Figure 7.15). The purple light helps define the roof edge and back corner of the pool but does little else. The key light comes in the form of a red point light added to the interior of the house. The point light uses linear light decay. All of the lights produce soft shadows. The shape of the pool is mainly established by the reflection of the red interior.

With this example, the lighting does not match lighting you would normally see at such a location. However, the lighting does define the location in such a way that you can quickly identify it as a modern building with a pool. The unusual colors can help inspire moods such as anxiety and dread, or a sense of caution or danger.

As a second example, the girl model first seen in Chapter 4 is re-lit (Figure 7.16). Three directional lights are placed to the left, right, and above with equal intensity, a lack of shadows, and saturated orange color (Figure 7.17). A spot light with a narrow cone is aimed at the face with a green color. Two point lights with quadratic decay and red color have been placed close to the eyes. It’s hard to imagine a real-world lighting situation that matches this particular lighting set-up. However, the lighting might be useful for communicating the character’s emotional state or indicating a story point. Perhaps the character has been hypnotized, possessed by a spirit, or is actually an alien in disguise. Similar lighting may also be useful for indicating a dream sequence or a daydream.

As a third stylistic example, lighting painting is emulated (Figure 7.18 and 7.19). Light painting, as seen as the opening illustration in this chapter, captures light streaks through long exposures with real-world cameras. There are several ways you can emulate light painting in a 3D program, including:

Figure 7.18 utilizes the third method—fast moving particles assigned to an incandescent and glowing shader. Many programs allow you to artificially lengthen the motion blur trail for each frame or choose an extended virtual shutter length. (Normally, the blur length is based on the distance an object moves over one frame as restricted by the duration the virtual shutter is open for that frame.) With this example, the Arnold renderer was used. Arnold supports 3D motion blur, which is able to determine accurate particle positions along each motion blur streak. Hence, the motion blur streaks form curves. 2D motion blur, by comparison, is only able to create linear streaks regardless of their length.