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Digital Lighting and Rendering

Digital Lighting and Rendering

by Jeremy Birn
Publisher: New Riders
Release Date: November 2013
ISBN: 9780133439182
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Book Description

Learn the fine art and craft of digital lighting and rendering from an experienced pro whose lighting work you’ve seen in blockbuster films such as Monsters University, Toy Story 3, Up, WALL-E, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles. Jeremy Birn draws on his wealth of industry and teaching experience to provide a thoroughly updated edition of what has become the standard guide to digital lighting and rendering. Using beautiful, full-color examples; a friendly, clear teaching style; and a slew of case studies and tutorials, Jeremy demonstrates how to create strategic lighting for just about any project using any 3D application. By explaining not just how to use various lighting techniques but why, this guide provides the grounding graphics pros need to master Hollywood lighting techniques.

  • Learn how to pinpoint problems with your lighting and solve them to produce professional results.
  • Break scenes into passes and layers, and convincingly composite 3D models into real-world environments.
  • Adopt a linear workflow for more convincing lighting, global illumination, and compositing.
  • Apply advanced rendering techniques using subsurface scattering, physically based lighting, caustics, and high dynamic range images.
  • Build a bigger bag of tricks by learning “old-school” approaches such as tweaking shadow maps, faking GI with occlusion passes, and other cheats and tricks that save render time.
  • Develop realistic materials and shaders, and design and assign detailed texture maps to your models.
  • Mimic photographic exposure and cinematography techniques to simulate real-life f-stops, lens breathing, bokeh effects, and Kelvin color temperatures for more photorealistic renderings.
  • Learn to light characters and environments in different situations: day or night; natural or artificial lights; indoors or outdoors; and in clear air, thick atmosphere, or under water.
  • Understand production pipelines at visual effects and animation studios, and prepare for collaborative work on large lighting teams
  • Get the latest insights into industry trends, and how to develop your lighting reel and get a job in an increasingly competitive industry.
  • Download many of the 3D scenes used in this book from the author’s website to try texturing, lighting, and compositing on your own

Table of Contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Introduction
    1. Who Should Read This Book?
    2. Software Requirements
    3. About This Edition
    4. Download Additional Files
  5. [Chapter One] Fundamentals of Lighting Design
    1. Motivation
    2. Cheating
    3. Visual Goals of Lighting Design
    4. Lighting Challenges
    5. Your Workspace
    6. Creative Control
  6. [Chapter Two] Lighting Basics and Good Practices
    1. Starting the Creative Process
    2. Types of Lights
    3. Adjusting Controls and Options
    4. Exercises
  7. [Chapter Three] Shadows and Occlusion
    1. The Visual Functions of Shadows
    2. The Appearance of Shadows
    3. Shadow Algorithms
    4. Occlusion
    5. Faking Shadows and Occlusion
    6. Exercises
  8. [Chapter Four] Lighting Environments and Architecture
    1. Creating Daylight
    2. Working with Indoor Natural Light
    3. Practical Lights
    4. Night Scenes
    5. Distance and Depth
    6. Exercises
  9. [Chapter Five] Lighting Creatures, Characters, and Animation
    1. Modeling with Light
    2. Three-Point Lighting
    3. Functions of Lights
    4. Issues in Lighting Character Animation
    5. Exercises
  10. [Chapter Six] Cameras and Exposure
    1. F-Stops and Depth of Field
    2. Shutter Speed and Motion Blur
    3. Film Speed and Film Grain
    4. Photographic Exposure
    5. Matching Lens Imperfections
    6. Exercises
  11. [Chapter Seven] Composition and Staging
    1. Types of Shot
    2. Camera Angles
    3. Improving Your Composition
    4. Framing for Film and Video
    5. Exercises
  12. [Chapter Eight] The Art and Science of Color
    1. Working in a Linear Workflow
    2. Color Mixing
    3. Developing Color Schemes
    4. Using Color Balance
    5. Working with Digital Color
    6. Exercises
  13. [Chapter Nine] Shaders and Rendering Algorithms
    1. Shading Surfaces
    2. Anti-Aliasing
    3. Raytracing
    4. Reyes Algorithms
    5. Global Illumination
    6. Caustics
    7. Exercises
  14. [Chapter Ten] Designing and Assigning Textures
    1. Mapping Surface Attributes
    2. Aligning Maps with Models
    3. Creating Texture Maps
    4. Using Procedural Textures
    5. Exercises
  15. [Chapter Eleven] Rendering in Layers and Passes for Compositing
    1. Rendering in Layers
    2. Rendering in Passes
    3. Matching Live-Action Background Plates
    4. Managing Colors in Your Composite
    5. Choosing Your Approach
    6. Exercises
  16. [Chapter Twelve] Production Pipelines and Professional Practices
    1. Production Pipelines
    2. Lighting on Larger Productions
    3. Advancing in Your Career
  17. Appendix: Getting a Job in 3D Graphics
    1. A Lighting Showreel
    2. Do I Need to Specialize?
    3. Technical Directors
    4. Internal Promotion
    5. Job Security
  18. Index