Variation: Lighting Breakup PART 1

This study will look at how to break up lighting to add natural variation and take off some of the “CG curse“ with imperfection.

Starting with The Force Awakens, let’s look at the overhead hallway lights, they are not all evenly illuminated. And the hallway lights do not have an even pattern of light intensity

There is another layer of light intensity on the walls with randomized light intensity throughout.

Another example can be found in The Lego Movie. I made an evenly lit version of the shot to be contrasted with the film’s varied lighting. There are more levels of lighting variation: the god rays are not evenly spaced, the and gobo breaking up the light hitting the rocks at the bottom of the frame.

There is even lighting intensity variation in the Octan logo - notice the dark-textured spots in the green and red parts of the logo:

Lastly, a real-life example below shows more variation layers: uneven top and bottom light spacing, blue/yellow sections of lighting, and areas of varying marquee intensity.