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Capstone
For my final semester at the University of Texas at Dallas, I chose to do a lighting focused project as my Capstone. I started by gathering 3 different environments from the Unreal Marketplace. Next, I gathered my references depending on which scenario I thought fit the scenes best, and made a color key as a guide prior to lighting. Then, I relit them in two different ways two demonstrate different atmospheres and moods, focusing on color and referencing my color keys throughout the process to capture the aesthetics of each respective scene.
Color Keys
Scene 01
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For my first scene, I went with an abandoned apocalyptic-like greenish color scheme. I used Silco's room from Arcane as my main reference for this first environment. I felt the green desaturated look captured the quiet eerie aspect this environment had, and I tried to further emphasize this through my lighting.
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For the second scene, I wanted to again use Arcane as my main reference, but this time going for a complete opposite color scheme from the first. I wanted to create contrast to show the variety of moods capable from lighting alone. I emphasized the use of saturated pink and blue lighting, drawing attention to the bright overhead lights and creating a darker outer edge to the shots.
Scene 02
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For the next scene, I wanted to capture the soft warm feeling the village environment conveyed. Contrasting with the harsh lighting from the first scenes, I utilized warm oranges and yellows to give off the feeling of a happy sunny day. The shadows are soft and there's lots of rim lighting to capture the shining sun.
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Following the day scene, I went for a calm night mood, utilizing blues and purples but still capturing the warm orange through the lanterns. I wanted the moon to be the main lighting source, casting a faint blue glow to the environment, while still drawing attention to the hanging lanterns and guiding the viewers eye to the houses through the use of contrasting colors (similar to the Wild Robot example in my references).
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Scene 03
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When choosing my last environment, I wanted to contrast the cartoon appearance from the village, so I chose a realistic downtown scene. My main references were shots from the movie Flow. I wanted to capture the harsh sunset lighting into this scene, using mostly warm colors and the harsh glow of the sun.
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For my last and final shots, I went with another night scene. Once again referencing mostly Arcane, I focused on the desaturated dystopian-like scheme, with lots of grey, blue, and browns. I drew attention to the lamp posts as the main lighting sources, with the moon being the secondary source as the night is cloudy and overcast. While still being bright from the white lights, I wanted this one to be my darkest of the 6 environments.
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