OVERVIEW

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Whilst experimenting with 3D Studio Max I tested different lighting techniques (please see research – experimentation section) and tried replicating lighting in horror films such as the early German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caliragi which is considered to be “one of the most important silent films in cinema history” and where contrast lighting was regularly used. Lighting is a key feature of 3D creativity and it can absolutely change the appearance or mood of a scene. Correct lighting can create relatively realistic models and animations or be used to highlight features in a scene. Lights can also be animated (for example the door of the robot morgue or when Jed’s light dims as he is knocked to the ground). I quickly learned that overdoing lighting isn’t necessarily a good thing. For one rendering time is increased, and also the more lights you add the more difficult it becomes to edit an entire scene’s lighting. I used omni lights extensively (with the attenuation sometimes switched on) to add shadow (a minus figure) or light (a positive figure) to a certain part or model in a scene

My film wasn’t based on reality yet had to maintain realism so the lighting was just as crucial if not more important. Texturing and lighting go hand in hand and one can always be enhanced with the help of the other. Bump maps were carefully adjusted to enhance the grainy texture of most of the set design. I learned that for what I needed to achieve omni lights and direct lights were the best lighting tools. Often to create atmosphere an omni assigned with a dirty colour was placed in the middle of the scene to release a lightly diffused tone over the whole scene.

LIGHTING RAVENSVILLE TOWN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The atmosphere of the town and essentially the whole film relied upon both the music and the lighting. Getting the lighting right was fundamental to this success of a scene. I began by setting up 4 main omni lights that would serve as the ‘natural’ light of the scene. The intensity of each (multiplier) was set between 0.1 and 0.4. The lighting was subtle but made a slight difference to the characters and the objects in the scene by highlighting several details. Two of these lights were positioned in between the blocks to create a subtle shadow through the blocks and on to the floor.

The main light sources were all positioned above the scene and were a mixture of free spots and omni lights. The intensity of the free spot lights ranged from 0.55 to 1.6 and was placed above the town facing the floor at an angle. The main omni lights were set with an intensity of 0.3 and 0.4 and far attenuation was applied so that the light gently bounced off the floor and did not create any harsh visible outlines. All the lighting in this scene used white beams and no colour was added. The red hint was added by using the ‘Effects’ feature in 3Ds Max.

LIGHTING THE CHILD'S BEDROOM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The light sources for the child’s bedroom were positioned mainly behind the window frame in front of the blinds. One omni was set up near the centre of the room with its colour set to a charcoal grey / green and its intensity set at 0.2. This is just enough light to provide a warm atmosphere and reflect tonal earth shades onto the objects in the room.

A free spot light was set up outside the window with its beam width set to cover the majority of the room. Then 3 omni lights were positioned beside the free spot light behind the window frame. The first was set to an intensity of 0.33 with a deep orange, the second to 0.16 with a bright yellow colour and third was set to a light blue / purple colour with an intensity of 0.42. All the lights in the scene were diffused lights with the specular box ticked in the drop down options.

LIGHTING THE TORTURE ROOM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lighting in the torture room was very difficult to match what I had visualized. The main light source comes from behind the metal grill near the top of the room. To do this I used a free spot light set to 1.0 and an omni also set to 1. Both used the default white colour. To pick up the light on the tortured robot I positioned two omni lights either side of the suspended robots head above his arms. These were set to an intensity of 0.4 each and emitted white light beams like before.

To balance out all the white light sources I placed a black omni in the centre of the room with an intensity of 6.0 and its multiplier colour set to black. Then to restrict the reach of the light I switched on far attenuation and adjusted the size of the beams light range. To ensure that enough light highlighted the tortured robot I added another omni light with an intensity of 1.0 with a light grey colour beam. Again far attenuation was switched on so that the light did not directly fall onto the robots head but covered the area above it. To highlight the base of the robot one more omni was added with an intensity of 0.2 with a white colour assigned.

LIGHTING THE WINDING STAIRCASE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

To light the scene with the winding stairs I used 5 different omni lights. This scene had very striking lighting where only a corner of the scene was lit. To achieve this I used ‘inverted’ or ‘minus’ omni lights. The two omni lights near the ceiling both had a negative intensity, one of -0.6 and the other of -0.618 and both of their beam colours were set to white. This meant a black light would have been emitted and would essentially retract light from the scene. This created the dark and gloomy effect I desired.

To make the atmosphere of the hallway seem empty and dated I positioned a grey / blue omni light in the centre of the scene and ticked the far attenuation box to restrict the reach of the light. Then to ensure that enough light reached the objects in the scene I created light grey and white omni lights and placed them on the outside of the staircase. The mood of the Jed’s tower had to be quirky, unusual and intriguing so unique and not necessarily ‘real’ lighting techniques were implemented.

CREATING THE BULLET TIME (WITH LASER) EFFECT -----------------------------------------------------------

This effect has been done to death but I decided to include it in the final cut of the film to demonstrate my development with 3D effects. The effect is based on the infamous Matrix bullet – time effect and is created using a plug-in called GhostTrails. I experimented with using particle effects for the trail but discovered that particles can not be ‘frozen’ in time to allow the camera to rotate around them. The only way this can be done is by using a rig where a number of cameras (usually between 24 and 120) are positioned around the particles and individual still shots are taken at each camera and laced together in post production. The most effective way of doing this is by creating a spline and linking a camera to the spline. This one camera can then be cloned a number of times to cover the length of spline. But this technique was prone to problems such as ‘jerky’ compositing and would be very time consuming so I decided to use the GhostTrails plug-in.

The Trail - To create the trail I created a circle spline the same radius as the bullet and positioned it on its end. Then I attached the spline to the bullet using the ‘select and link’ button. This meant that the spline would follow the bullet when animated. Then the GhostTrails modifier was applied to the spline. When the bullet is animated a circle trail will be created. The material applied to the trail had a high specular level and a relatively low glossiness level with a self-illumination map also applied.

The Smoke - To create the smoke I used particle effects. I placed a SuperSpray particle array in the scene and set the timing of the particle generation to just after the revolver turns and the bullet is fired. I set the speed of the smoke to 2 and the particle size to 1. The spray created will not simulate smoke on its own so I added a wind and drag force to this scene. These can be found under ‘space warps’. In order to activate the forces they were bound to the SuperSpray. To create the texture for the smoke I used the same materials settings as for the trail but increased the diffuse colour (a dark grey) and reduced the opacity of the material.

The Laser - The laser on the top of the gun was created using a free directional light. This was positioned in the centre of the cylinder and rotated to face the front of the gun. The colour of the light beam was set to red and the intensity set to 3. The directional parameter of the light was set to ‘circle’. Then to add the misty effect inside the light beam I added the volume light effect and under the effects options picked the free directional light as the source light.

CREATING THE SPLASH -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The splash was a difficult effect to create. Originally I wanted Juniper to splash into the water and have a ripple effect after he makes impact but instead, unconvinced by the ripples, I edited the scene to cut as impact is made.

The sea itself was created using the SeaSurface object within the Seascape 1.2 plug-in. But this is irrelevant to the splash itself. To create the effect I used the PArray particle system. I merged one of the blue balls that hit Juniper in the film into the scene and used that as the basis of the emitter (these fireballs used a similar particle setup as the splash and used the PArray particle system also). The fireball was set up as the particle emitter so all the particle would spawn from the object. A wind force was also bound to the PArray with strength of 1 to ensure that the splash appeared organic.

The particle quantity was set to 600 and configured to start at frame 54 (the moment of impact) and end at frame 58. The particle type was set to triangle. The material for the particles was created using a grey diffuse colour and setting the opacity to 40. Then a self-illumination map was applied with a mask (gradient ramp). To make the particles appear as if they are created at speed I applied motion blur to the PArray. I did this by right-clicking on the PArray and enabling motion blur. I selected image as the blur option and set the multiplier to 2.0.

VIDEOPOST -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To create glows in 3D Studio Max I used Videopost. First the object which will have a glow applied will need to be given a unique object channel (unless it requires the same glow as another object). I did this by right-clicking on the object and in the object properties setting its channel to 1 or greater. Then under the ‘rendering’ drop down menu ‘videopost’ is selected and the setup is prepared. I added a scene event and under the drop down menu selected the camera I required when rendering (or the viewport).

I then added an image filter event and selected ‘Lens Effects Glow’. If multiple glows are being added it can be wise to label each accordingly. Then the setup tab was selected whilst still in the image filter event window. A new window appears and here under properties the object ID is set to the object channel number determined at the beginning.

Now the scene can be previewed. Under the preferences tab the colour and effect of the glow can be altered. I often used gradient and edited the colours to create a fire effect. To transfer the video post effect from one scene to the other I saved the edited colour gradient and in the new scene loaded it up again. Then an image output event must be added in Videopost and the type of file should be specified. I set all my renders in Videopost to QuickTime movies with Sorensen 3 compression at 25 frames.

To make the blaster on Juniper’s back I created two boxes the size of the flames and positioned them inside the blaster on his back. I then set the object channel of the boxes and applied a material with a set opacity of 0. This way once rendered in Videpost, the boxes are invisible and only the glow will be seen. To make the blaster seem as if it is being switched and the glow lengthening, I reduced the size of the boxes to almost invisible and over a few frames gradually increased their size.

Below are examples of where I used Videopost,

CREATING THE TITLE SEQUENCE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Using a Rigid Body Collection

To create the realistic physics in the title sequence I used Reactor. This is a very useful and impressive feature of 3D Studio Max. To create the effect of falling letters I began by creating a 1 segment box primitive for the base where the letters would fall. Then using the text spline tool under the ‘shapes’ menu, I created 7 letters spelling ‘Juniper’. These were created individually to ensure that when put into reactor they reacted differently and not as a group. I used a font named ‘Two Turtle Doves’ and the letter size for each text spline were set to 96.6. If rendered at this point, the letters would be invisible so I added the Extrude modifier to all the letters and set the amount to 1.0.

The lettering for ‘The Last Robot’ was made using a font named ‘Boring Boron’ and unlike the ‘Juniper’ lettering, all the letters were created as a group as I did not intend on animating them with Reactor. Again the Extrude modifier was applied to the letters. To create the lines, 2 thin 1 segment box primitives were created and placed on either side of the letters (this could have also be done using extruded splines, but this was a quicker method).

To animate the letters I created a ‘Rigid Body Collection’ from the Reactor toolbar (opened by right-clicking the main horizontal menu and selecting ‘reactor’ from the list). Then the RBCollection was selected and in the modify options all the ‘Juniper’ text extrusions and the base box primitive were added to the ‘RB Collection Properties’ list. Next I had to give the Rigid Body objects a mass. In the utilities menu, ‘reactor’ was opened and ‘physical properties’ the mass, elasticity and friction of each object was set. All the ‘Juniper’ letters were given a mass of 2.0, an elasticity of 0.2 and a friction setting of 1.5. The simulation geometry for the letters was set to ‘bounding box’. The mass of the base box was set to 2.0 also and the ‘unyielding box’ was ticked to ensure that the object stood grounded when previewed. If this box is not ticked, the object would fall like the letters. The simulation geometry for the base box was set to ‘use mesh convex hull’.

To animate the falling letters, the ‘Juniper’ lettering was moved up above the camera. Then the scene was previewed using the ‘preview animation’ button on the reactor toolbar. Once I was satisfied with the animation the ‘create animation’ button was pressed. This action tells Reactor to calculate the animation and creates a key frame animation in the usual work area.

Lighting the Title Sequence

The lighting in the title sequence involved one static omni light and four dynamic omni lights. The static omni light was positioned off-centre and set to an intensity of 1.0 (with a white coloured beam) and the shadows parameter also switched on. The dynamic omni lights again had a white colour but their intensity was set to -1.0 subtracting light from the scene as apposed to adding light. To restrict the subtractive light ‘far attenuation’ was switched on and the start and end were set to 80 and 200. The dynamic omni lights were animated so that they started out of frame and gradually closed in on the title transforming the screen to almost black.

APPLYING BUILT - IN EFFECTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The built-in effects Max provides are very versatile and effective. They are post effects that are applied after a frame has been rendered. There are a number of options for each effect and I found myself using 3 of these throughout my film. I used ‘Blur’, ‘Color Balance’ and ‘Brightness and Contrast’. Setting these up is very easy. First I went to the main top toolbar and under the ‘Rendering’ selected ‘Effects’. This action brought up a new menu which contains all the effects I required. Then I selected ‘Add’ from the right hand side and chose ‘Blur’ from the ‘Add Effect’ menu. Then in the rollout menu for the blur effect I set the blur type to uniform and set the pixel radius percentage to 0.6. Throughout my film the aggressiveness of the blur is adjusted and sometimes animated. The range of the blurs ranged from around 0.6 to 3.0 (this effect was also used on the title sequence to blur–in the scene).

Then ‘Color Balance’ was added to the effects menu. This effect would adjust the colour of the frame and works in a similar way to the option of the same name in Adobe Photoshop. In the options under ‘color balance parameters’ the colours were set to 10 for red, 0 for green and -10 for blue. Again these numbers varied on every scene but I always kept the same format where the number set for the red colour was subtracted from the blue colour. The green field was always set as 0.

Next I added ‘Brightness and Contrast’ to the effects list and set the brightness to 0.4 and the contrast to 0.7. This effect helped sharpen the harsh contrast tones and reduce the mid-tones. The brightness was set lower than the contrast to slightly darken the scenes and create the atmosphere I wanted. This effect was a valuable tool but had to be adjusted carefully as sometimes scenes became too dark or sharply contrasted and had to be re-rendered.

The ‘Lens Effects’ option allows a wide number of interesting effects to be added to the scene. Space scenes can benefit greatly from these effects but because of the nature of my film I only used the ‘Glow’ parameter and it was used sparingly. Below is an example of a scene I used to test the adjustments the above effects created.