3D Lighting Artist and Generalist
The Rustic Cabin
Spring 2024. Capstone project focused on lighting and compositing.
The Rustic Cabin is my Senior Capstone Project at Texas A&M University. Using the Rustic Cabin Pixar Renderman challenge scene, I aimed to explore strategies for lighting according to emotion and the psychology of color theory. The relationship between lighting, mood, and color theory was researched through the creation three different lighting setups in the same environment. The influence of purely lighting and color on the scene's mood is highlighted as it transitions between the individual lighting setups.
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The references and inspiration (see below) for my chosen setups were meant to emphasize colors and moods that are highly unique from each other. Keywords for my setups:
- First setup: night, in from the cold, warm vs. cool.
- Second setup: creepy, abandoned, fog.
- Third setup: dawn, lavender, comfortable.
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This project was created with the mentorship of Myriah Higgins, lighting artist at Bluepoint Games, and Miguel Perez, generalist at Lucasfilm.
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Roles: All lighting​, all compositing, layout, setdressing
Software Used: Unreal Engine 5, Davinci Resolve, Autodesk Maya, Quixel Bridge
Renders and Values
Setup 1 Breakdown
1. Lighting
2. Lighting with Unreal Post-Processing
3. Davinci Resolve Compositing
Scene Breakdown
Detail Lighting
Setup 2 Breakdown
1. Lighting
2. Lighting with Unreal Post-Processing
3. Davinci Resolve Compositing
Scene Breakdown
Detail Lighting
Setup 3 Breakdown
1. Lighting
2. Lighting with Unreal Post-Processing
3. Davinci Resolve Compositing
Scene Breakdown
Detail Lighting
Reference & Inspiration
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Credits
All surfacing courtesy of Quixel Bridge and Poliigon. Additional scene models courtesy of Quixel Bridge.
Lightbulb model courtesy of DeepDreamDimension.
Candle fire courtesy of M5 VFX Vol2. Fire and Flames by JeongukChoi.
Photos courtesy of iStock, Adobe Stock, Maritime History Archive, American Library Association, National Gallery of Art, A Home is Announced: Public Domain Drawings & Illustrations, and Jared Polin.
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Special thanks to Adrianne (AJ) Ross for model troubleshooting assistance and cow skull surfacing.