I once read a forum discussion between some lighting artists regarding the way they explain their craft to outsiders. The thread was humorously titled, Having Trouble Describing My Profession to Friends and Relatives.
The posts went on for a few pages as dozens of artists chimed in, describing the difficulties they have when explaining what it is that they do, and recalling the visible disappointment on their acquaintances faces when they realize that no, they're not talking to an animator.
In the end the somewhat facetious (and unfortunate) consensus ended up being, “Aw heck, just tell them you make video games."
If you're wondering where I'm going with this, bear with me:
The thread was pretty spot on. An animator doesn't even have to describe what he does—everyone understands the job of an animator even if they don't know how the task is accomplished.
Modelers have it easy too: “You know all those environments you walked through in Gears of War?. I build those for a living. It's like Legos for grown-ups!”
Lighting is more esoteric:
Describing the lighting process to someone who's never been involved with film, photography, or computer graphics is difficult.
An artist might say, “I design 3D lighting solutions for film and games,” but what does that tell someone who's experience with lighting is limited to either a.) the sun or b.) the light switch.
Most people experience lighting very passively in their day to day lives.
So when they see a Pixar film, they acknowledge that someone had to build those characters and sets and someone had to animate them. But very rarely does a member of the mainstream audience walk out of the theater and say to his friend, "Wow, did you see the lighting in such-and-such establishing shot?" It was genius!"
No, if they comment on any aspect of the CG, it's most often film's character & environment design, or it's level of realism.
My round-about point is this:
Lighting is the most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of the entire computer graphics pipeline.
You could be a rock-star modeler, and literally create the best 3D model in the history of CG—without a good lighting solution you simply won't end up with a good render. I know this, because I'm an adept modeler who still has a lot to learn about lighting and I have a huge stack of mediocre renders to show for it.
Lighting has as much power over the final look of an image or animation as any other aspect of the pipeline. A great deal of an image's color, mood, atmosphere, and readability are derived from the lighting solution.
Think about it—simply by altering the hue, intensity, and placement of your lights, you can drastically alter a scene's overall impact.
You can change an environment from night to day by adding a few lights. You can change the mood of an image from suspenseful and mysterious to bright and cheerful simply by adding some warm hues, some saturation, and a few fill lights. You can make a portrait render "pop" by remembering to include a rim light.
A firm understanding of lighting increases the power of your creative expression.
If You Want to Set Yourself Apart, Learn Effective Lighting!
Beginning CG artists are almost as guilty as mainstream audiences.
Because modeling and animation are the two most "obvious" facets of a 3D production, these are the things that students and hobbyists focus on when they're just starting out.
It's fine to put all your effort into those things at the very beginning, but if you want to eventually become a well-rounded artist, it's incredibly important to invest some time in learning how to create interesting, dynamic, lighting solutions for your renders.
I recently watched a Gnomon Masterclass lecture by Jeremy Vickery, who works as a lighting technical director at Pixar animation studios.
I can't remember the quote word for word, but toward the end of his presentation he said something along these lines:
"I can't tell you how many demo reels I've reviewed where the artist's models are just beautiful, but the lighting is flat, unrealistic, and uninteresting—essentially an afterthought."
That's what you want to avoid!
If you're a beginner, or if you're in the middle of building a demo reel, do yourself a favor. Set aside a few days, or even a few weeks, and focus your attention on gaining the knowledge necessary to create realistic, interesting lighting solutions. I promise you'll end up a better artist because of it!
