Luise Rolle - Lighting Lookdev

Join me in exploring a selection of my showreel, featuring Dolce Vita and The Fisherman and Fireflies.

Dolce Vita

In this project, I utilized Autodesk Maya as my primary 3D modeling tool, the Arnold Render Engine for lighting and shading, and 3D Substance Painter for texturing. The final phase of the project was compositing in Nuke. Except for a few modeling assets, all stages of this projects were personally handled by me.

I found an interesting challenge: to capture the essence of the film 'Luca', but with a twist. Instead of just mirroring the colors and general concept, I crafted my own color palette. This involved a lot of fun experimenting with lighting and color to convey different times of day and mood changes.

In preparing for this project, I dived deep into the visuals of 'Luca' as well as real-world references.

I explored images of Mediterranean streets, soaking up the unique colors and textures that make these locations so inviting. My goal was to recreate a similar warmth and sense of welcome with the comforting familiarity of a favorite hangout spot.

Modeling and Set

At first, I tried to model each piece in my reference individually, but it was too time-consuming. The solution was creating an asset library. This let me have a whole collection of unique details to play with and helped me create a more varied scene.

I decided to add even more variety by giving the key assets their own special textures. For Example one of the Houses:

Expanding the color palette showed me how much the color choice can affect the composition. It wasn't really easy to get a new range. 

Especially after experimenting with colors inspired by Greek cities, I found that they didn't really suit the shape of the buildings (last picture), I had to go back and find some more references. I found this picture from a small lane in Malcesine:

Like in this picture I ended up with more oranges and reds in the foreground and a mix of warm and cool greens and yellows in the background.

Lighting - Day and Night

When it came to daytime scenes, getting the shadow colors right was a fun challenge. I used high-saturation HDRI and a big top light to intensify and color-correct the shadows. I also added extra directional lights to create a warmer sunlight effect and a softer look. The result was a cool contrast between cold shadows and warm light, with the composition's focus being on color.

Nighttime was a different story. The task here was to maintain a warm atmosphere on the street while capturing the cold night sky. I used artificial lights in the windows and street lanterns, and even added some flickering lights for extra flavor. At night, the scene was all about the balance of light and shadow, rather than color.

So here is the final result:

The Fisherman and Fireflies

This was a team project together with Chiara Döpgen and Jessica Wicher , in which I was responsible for lighting and compositing. Our main objective was simple, match our reference as closely as possible.

The beautiful Concept was made by Arthus Pilorget

For lighting I used the Arnold Render Engine. The bulk of work was done with Nuke.

A critical decision in this process was how to handle the fog. I decided to add the fog in 2D using Nuke, instead of going with a 3D option, which kept render times from shooting up. It was an interesting process, because even though the fog wasn't visible in the render, it was crucial in bringing the concept to life.

How to create a Depth Mask

For the 2D Method I created a mask using a technique called Atmo Shader, that is based on the camera's sampler info. The Z values (depth values) of the camera are converted to X values and projected onto a black and white ramp. In-between I used the setRange node with the Old Max value (red) to define the depth of the room. The result looks very similar to the Z-Depth AOV except for the soft outlines of the objects.

Lighting

When it came to lighting, I used the three-point lighting principle for both the background and foreground. I tried to match our reference by paying attention to the bright and dark spots and trying to get the color hues just right. Our main assets, the boat and the fisherman, needed extra care as they were minimally impacted by the fog.

I also created extra lights for the reflections from the Lighthouse and the orange Lamp on the water to have more control over position, size and brightness.

In preparation for the post-processing phase, I rendered a bunch of lightgroup AOVs. This gave me a lot of flexibility for compositing.

Main Task - Nuke

My main tasks in Nuke were color correction and setting up the fog layers, for which I used a total of ten different layers. To create these layers I used the Atmo AOV in combination with Grade Nodes to select the position from the masking area by adjusting the white and black levels.

And yes, the color corrected version (first picture) looks somehow strange. I went back and forth from layering fog and matching the colors to the concept. Finally after adding some lens effects I was happy with the result.

The Fisherman and Fireflies was a unique project, especially because it involved a lot of 2D compositing work. It was also a bit odd not to see the final look fully in Maya, but it was a great learning experience. It really helped me sharpen my skills in balancing colors, light, and shadows.

And hey, be aware about the color settings on your monitors - they can make a world of difference!

Big thanks to Chiara and Jessi for letting me be a part of this awesome project. Shout out to Eva Mateo Fábregas for her patience and expertise!

Lastly, thanks for checking out my work. If it caught your eye or you found something you like, well, that just makes my day!