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(Bonus) Iterations, iterations, and iterations once again...
🕑 Added 2025-01-20 19:03:55 +0000 UTCWelp, this time my biggest enemy was scene lighting. While character animation was done in roughly 2-3 hours, the lighting took a few days to evolve into something usable.
Lighting
I began working on it without any ideas on how it should be lighted. And quite quickly it became obvious that a simple 3-point light setup won't work. I can't say it should've worked here because of scene complexity but in 1 of 10 projects it can work quite well. Usually, it requires more light sources. Still, you can see how the 3-point light setup looks here on 1st iteration and the improved version on 2nd iteration.
Well, if a simple setup doesn't work, it's time to experiment with lighting approaches. While placing key light sources in random places, I got an idea for the environment and how it can affect lighting. The main idea was to make the middle area warm-colored while making the sides cold-colored. Like Hoodwink is the only heat source in a cold environment. Speaking of environment - I was thinking of a logical place where the mimic could be. My first thought was to make some kind of dungeon, but I quickly scrapped it because of how it would be poorly lit, even with torches. Then I come up with the idea of a trader's house with a basement full of weird stuff for sale.
It seemed like a perfect place for the scene, as you can place light sources from windows on the sides to make them look cold and add a warm light source obstructed by floor planks above. Also, I found out that if you place light sources in the correct spots, you can achieve a really good-looking wet effect on a surface. This is how I came up with the 3rd iteration.
Still, I messed up and got an over-contrasted and over-saturated light setup which was looking like a combination of randomly placed light sources. Then, just for a test, I've tried to move the scene to outdoors. This is totally different from what I wanted, but "maybe it will look better?". Well, it is not. I actually like how Hoodwink looks here, but everything else is totally out of place. The thing is, pink color isn't easy to combine with other colors due to its unnatural look. You can describe it as something alien, out of place, or magical. This would be good considering that mimic can be a magical beast, but I decided it will be better if I returned to my previous idea for an environment. 4th iteration just looks weird.
With these thoughts, I've returned to the previous lighting setup and begun making it look good. This time I almost succeeded on making a somewhat nice looking lighting, but it still suffers from contrast issues. I've edited the background, removed light beams going from the top floor, and made it darker and colder pushing further the idea of Hoodwink being the only warm source here.
5th iteration is the last one of the major iterations I can show. There is a few additional ones, but they are slightly modified versions of each iteration shown here.
With it, I moved to the color-grading stage, where I was fooling around with colors. The bottom 2 images are from this stage. The left one - the source, and the right one - the final.
In conclusion, I can say that even the simplest ideas can be difficult to implement, and usually in places where you least expect to see difficulties.
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Shmi Skyrunner
"Even the simplest ideas can be difficult to implement, and usually in places where you least expect to see difficulties." describes my entire career in game design.
