Winter in the city - Lighting contest

Working on the second render

This time I worked on the second render, going for the more sunny, end of afternoon kind of look. For this one I wanted to have most of the light coming exclusively from the directional light and the skylight to have a more natural look. I added the volumetric fog for the bright rays of the sun and put on top a post process volume to tweak the colours to match better the yellows of my references. 

Before VS after post processing:

I worked more on the lighting and the post processing, going for a more moody render with different blues and red contrasts. Overall quite happy with where it is going, I'm probably going to come back to it to polish it more once I'm done with the second render.

I added some elements to make it more snowy and fit better the winter theme. I played a bit more with the atmospheric fog and the camera settings. I haven't really worked that much on the light yet, only quickly set a sky light and a directional light with a bit of temperature, as I wanted to assemble the scene first and have a good idea of how it will look. In the next step I will be exclusively working on the lighting and post-processing of the scene.

First layout and first lighting pass

I finally had time to work on this project and started assembling the scene using assets from the Unreal market place. I also did a very basic first lighting pass to set the first gloomy mood and colours. 

 I still need to add some details as well as the snow + effects so that it has that winter feel and after that I'll be able to go into more detailed lighting. 

All 3D assets used are from the Megascan library, the Detective office pack by Deep Poly and the Soul City pack by Epic Games

Lighting reference board

For my renders I want to go for a city type of scene with two distinct mood.

The first render is going to be more dark and gloomy, with heavy use of fog and cold colours, overcast weather and set during the beginning of the evening. My main inspiration will be the work of photographer Nicolas Miller.

The second render will be the opposite in terms of mood and colours. I want to give a warm feeling, with warm colours and set during either early morning or afternoon, with contrasts of saturated blues and yellows.