A Hat

Texturing & Lookdev

Right off the bat, I knew I wanted to give the characters a deeper, olive skin tone and flush the scene with late-afternoon sunlight. Since both characters had black outfits, I also wanted to place a lighter element behind them so they would separate well from the background.

I started out by making the wall behind them white. After several iterations, I ended up with a warm brick wall and a white door, which I enlarged to frame the characters. I made several set dressing changes to make the environment a bit more realistic and subtle. I wanted all the focus to be on the characters.

This was also my first project using Substance Painter. The smart materials were really helpful in getting my feet off the ground, and the procedural texturing workflow made it easy to have creative flexibility while I experimented with different colors.

Lighting

Now came the lighting. I learned three main things while working on this shot.

1. Having the right intensity in the main source: sunlight. Late afternoon sunlight is very strong! I wanted it to really feel like they were outside in that time of day. In this regard, using ACES workflow really helped because I was able to push the exposure of my sun light more without losing information in the highlights.

2. Getting enough bounce light. I didn't want it to feel like they were in a field in direct sunlight. On top of the sun source, I wanted there to be lots of diffused light bouncing around the scene, creating a glowy, warm atmosphere that would highlight their warm embrace.

3. Creating dynamic shadows. I used a gobo on the sunlight, creating different shadows throughout the scene. This not only created visual variations in the background, but also made it feel like there were other objects outside of the frame, hinting at a larger world.

With some final touches in compositing, this is the finished before and after!

This was the first animated shot I completed within several weeks. After this project it was much easier to jump into multiple other projects, so I am very thankful and happy with how it turned out.

As always, any and all feedback are welcome! Leave a comment or reach out on LinkedIn or Instagram !