Digital Lighting & Rendering, Second Edition

CHAPTER FIVE: Lighting Creatures, Characters, and Animation 139

[Figure 5.15]

In wireframe, a  ll light

is added opposite from

the key.

Bounce Lights

Bounce lights for characters are basically the same as bounce lights for sets,

described in Chapter 4, “Lighting Environments and Architecture.” Bounce

lights can be considered a type of fi ll light; the only difference is that they

simulate indirect light bounces instead of other sources of light.

To simulate light bouncing off the ground, you can aim bounce lights up

through the ground. Bounce lights usually look best with a quadratic or

inverse square decay, so the closer your character comes to the surface, the

more the lights illuminate nearby parts of your character.

In lighting characters, you need to be especially careful that all of your bounce

lights either cast shadows or are darkened by ambient occlusion, so that the

inside of the mouth, nose, or other interior surfaces don’t become too bright.

Also, bounce lights should not cast specular highlights. Nobody would

believe that a highlight on the lower part of a character’s eyeball was moti-

vated by soft indirect light bounced off the fl oor.