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Part 1:Visual Style (chosen theme) Pages 1 to 4

Examples of Low Key Lighting (Noir Lighting) shown above. Developing shadow and harsh lighting in the early days of black and white films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari movie shown on the above left, and is also implemented in modern day movies such as Sin City. Similar influence of low key lighting styles like one point lighting stems as far back as an early nineteenth century German art movement of expressionism using domination of darks.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) [Full Classic Horror Movie HQ] shown above... See bibliography

Low Key lighting brief history, See Bibliography... referenced from Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting Book.

Film Noir Lighting example on above right, from Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting Book... See bibliography

By John Lee (l002274a)

Delving into the visual style of horror/thriller and suspense Genres where one of the most commonly used cinematic techniques is Low Key lighting, which is created by using a single key light.

While creating a similar contrast and value of Low Key One Point Lighting is a cinematic style called Film Noir, which usually introduces and utilizes more lights within a scene.

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A much less commonly known term of light and dark contrast working in tandem is Chiaroscuro which is a Italian word for Light and Dark. This technique is more frequently used to sum up traditional paintings that have harsh lighting and dominance of darkness usually the backgrounds have a strong dark contrast.

Chiaroscuro seems to work on a similar principle of contrast between light and dark, like the Film Noir style. There are similar uses of this type of lighting in modern horror genres of media like Silent Hill shown below.

Examples of this painting Style shown on the left, by a artist from the 15th and 16th century called Caravaggio.

Silent Hill Game Clip above: silent hill homecoming Playstation 3 snapshot shown above.jpg see bibliography...

Referenced from a article: Chiaroscuro in Painting: The Power of Light and Dark (the inspiration of saint matthew by Caravaggio) Shown on the left. See Bibliography...

The Silent Hill game clip above has quite defined dark outline of the man and strong contrasts of brown and reds creating a overall suspenseful and creepy look.

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Silent Hill game and Silent Hill 2 Film exterior shots above, see bibliography...

Although the movie take on the Silent Hill games has stuck to a related visual style for exterior scenes, compared to the movie version shown on the above left shot and game version on the above right .

Where the exterior scenes for this type of 15 rated horror genre is in the cold spectrum of colour using gray to white.

As strong defined blacks of the girls hair and eye shown on the above left shot, that relates to the dark background of that movie shot.

While the purple top the girl is wearing in the top left shot draws the eye in and gives impact to bring forth from the dark background.

Which is similar to the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari still shot shown on page one of the document, which shows very strong darks in the hair and the cloths.

With a similar contrast of colours on the exterior Silent Hill game shot on the above right, with a dark to gray/white colour scheme in reverse to the movie shot on the above left.

The man in the above right shot taking less visual impact than the lady in the movie shot on above left, as he is more shaded in the top right standing out less in scene.

Also relating to the characters roles within the story as the girl is more portrayed as having more dominance over the other characters.

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MAMA Movie shots exterior on the top left and interior on the top right, See Bibliography...

A similar technique of lighting shown by the two shots above used in the (15 rated horror-thriller) Mama Movie, with strong dominant blacks and defining blues with minor whites that stands out.

With the interior scene on the top right looking almost inversed to the top left shot, showing a silhouette type figure drawing ones eye to the centre.

Pan's Labyrinth movie shots shown above, see Bibliography...

While the 15 rated Fantasy Drama Pan's Labyrinth shots shown above have a similar colour contrast to the Mama Movie shots at the top of the page.

Although the situations are completely different as the Mama Shot scenes are more disturbing and is supposed to come across as scary, yet the Pan's Labyrinth movie shots are portraying a more calmer and mysteriously friendlier atmosphere to the scenes.

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One interesting example of a technique for lighting a disturbing or scary type of scene is using over saturated colours and a strong decay rate.

Sentence above Referenced from (A Scary Hellhole) lighting techniques from 'Maya Professional Tips and Techniques' by Lee Lanier-Autodesk Maya Press, Book. See Bibliography...

With no Decay Rate at 0.800 intensity shown above 1024x668p test render

Testing the use of the linear decay from a 3D Spot light implemented in Maya shown in the scene above, and the spot light's position in the scene shown on the top of page 7.

Using a strong saturated red of the intensity of 150 seemed more fitting, as mentioned in the Maya tips and tricks book suggested only going up to intensity of 20, both were tested on the rendered shots shown on the following page 6. (Maya tips and tricks book, see bibliography)

This use of strong over saturated type of lighting style is slightly more leaning towards the lighting style shown in the Silent Hill Game Clip on page 2 named under this reference-(Silent Hill Game Clip, See Bibliography)...

This was tested out on the main hall-lighting project in one of its more later stages of development shown in the 3 rendered shots below and onto the next page.

Part 2: Overview of implemented light and Shader nodes

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Hellhole test increased intensity of 150 on side spotlight, shown above. test render at 1024x668p

Linear Decay & 20% intensity at 1024x668p test render shown above

Using a red intensity of 20 with a linear decay rate shown above, gave the feel and look of the scenes lighting, that looks almost identical to the Spotlight settings which used 150 intensity with no decay rate shown below.

Summing up the intensity of 150 at this point seems a little strong, maybe double that amount to 300 or so it will show more decay of the left side of the wall to match the darkness on the right side.

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A more seemingly preferred method of Area lights (Bounce Lights) to create a alternative method of Global Illumination, which for one makes the render times shorter for a slightly faster result.

Yet for the final layout of lights types Spotlights were used instead, as suggested in the Maya Professional Tips and Techniques book.

Although the book did not give a good comparison of why to use spotlights instead of Area Lights.

The Highlighted spotlight light in the top scene has a linear Decay rate and a intensity of 150.000

Maya Professional Tips and Techniques book (page143) referring to top sentence See bibliography....

Spilling light from the opposite sides of the walls in the foreground, moving the man more into the foreground to make him in a harsh almost silhouette like effect, with a very vivid rim of light off the right side of the shoulder and head light placements shown above.

Light Placements shown above.

Part 3: Final Light Placements and Solutions

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Global illumination (GI) does not seem necessary with this type of genre of lighting style , initially utilizing quite harsh dark shadows if (GI) was to be used it would make them finer losing its strong shadow.

The reflectivity on the floor that was set as default was taken out 'set to zero' as it was too reflective shown on the top of page 9 below.

Making a decision to have the two spotlights at the front turned into Area lights to inspect any change to the scene, shown on the above two shots.

The area lights had to be shrunk to get the scene back to its original light intensity shown on the top right shot.

Aria light switch shown in the two shots above and below. test render at 1024x668p

Digital Lighting and Rendering book pages 125-132 , see Bibliography...

Part 4: FG-GL-AO related Final Renders

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Also the specular colour on the floor material effects the colour of the light, created by the spotlight casting the shadow of the window set to a exterior setting with specular ticked in its light settings shown below.

The exterior Spotlight Colour was changed to a more light pink red colour from the white shown on the bottom right.

To contrast a little more with the rest of the scenes red to brown colour scheme shown on the bottom left.

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Volumetric Fog Without FG/GL/AO Full HD shown on above left.

Volumetric Fog With FG/GL/AO Full HD shown on above right.

Part 4.5: Used Volume Fog and Composite

The Global Illumination and other indirect lighting used in the rendered scene shown on the above right has a slightly more orange colour applied to it, making it seem slightly brighter around the blue fog area in the background shown in the two shots above.

Testing different uses of the volumetric light fog colour ramp attributes along with different density changes shown the above 4 shots demonstrated with a simple polygon sphere.

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The use of the Volumetric Noise node applied to the Volumetric 'ConeFogs colour' created this grainy look to the fog which did not seem right in the scene shown above.

Fog low density full HD test render shown above

Mid blue fog Y ramp density 230 full HD Test Render shown above

The Volumetric Fog has prevented the shadow on the window showing on the ground floor shown above.

The shadow was regained by using the previous render shown on the bottom right of page 9 entitled 'adjusted light pink-red colour', composited with the above shots in Photoshop shown below.

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Other Helpful Tips for Volumetric fog used can be found in the references under Bibliography and References section, Volumetric Fog info

Evil Dead movie snapshot shown above, see bibliography...

Looking at examples of fog in interior scenes from horror movies to incorporate a similar contrast of fog colour showing a bright white background to blue foreground shown above.

Yet still quite different from the Horror thriller 15 rated fog found in the silent hill movie seemingly more grey to white contrast of colour used shown on top of page 3.

Deciding to keep to a to a mix of white to a blue colour of fog via the use of its ramp shown on top of page 10 and 11.

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Part 5: Bibliography & References

Using the blend mode- Screen to help bring forth the windows shadow back to the scene shown above, adjusting brightness and contrast to dull the scene a little.

With the use of the burn tool to have more control over reducing some of the light areas shown below, also giving more control over the lightness and density of the fog.

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Bibliography

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) [Full Classic Horror Movie HQ] Frame still at 001.39/1:11:37 seconds [ASSESSED ONLINE at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP3WDQXkJq4] ON 25/02/2014 Film Noir Lighting example, Page 22-2008 Jupiter Images Corporation. From Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting Book second edition (Lee Lanier) copyright 2008 by Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, Published Simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-0-470-29273-0 Low Key lighting brief history, pages 22,23,28, From Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting Book second edition (Lee Lanier) copyright 2008 by Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, Published Simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-0-470-29273-0

Referenced from a online article: Chiaroscuro in Painting: The Power of Light and Dark (the inspiration of saint matthew by Caravaggio) Accessed online at http://emptyeasel.com/2007/07/20/chiaroscuro-in-painting-the-power-of-light-and-dark/ Published on Jul. 20th 2007 by Dan in Art Tutorials > Painting Tutorials on 23/02/14 Silent Hill 2 Movie shot from: Accessed [online] http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2012/10/silent-hill-revelation-SG-00250_rgb-610x343.jpg

(A Scary Hellhole) lighting techniques from 'Maya Professional Tips and Techniques' by Lee Lanier-Autodesk Maya Press, Book page143. Accessed online at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Bd-HKkbV8CsC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=lighting+for+horror+scene+in+maya&source=bl&ots=eBQlZDtMhW&sig=iH99OfkSLz0bk-kv14xyD4zzfxk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xsMJU67tN4nX7AamsIGACA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=lighting%20for%20horror%20scene%20in%20maya&f=false

ISBN-13: 978-0470107409

Evil Dead movie snapshot: Accessed [online] at 6pm 21/03/2014 from: http://www.headinjurytheater.com/images/deadalive%20lets%20dance.jpg

Volumetric Fog info, Accessed [online] at: http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/mrfm_Lighting_Global_illumination_caustics_and_final_gather.htm,topicNumber=d30e740360