COLOR

LIGHTING

  • Photography basics: Solid Angle measures

    http://www.calculator.org/property.aspx?name=solid+angle

     

     

    A measure of how large the object appears to an observer looking from that point. Thus. A measure for objects in the sky. Useful to retuen the size of the sun and moon… and in perspective, how much of their contribution to lighting. Solid angle can be represented in ‘angular diameter’ as well.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_angle

     

    http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/steradian.html

     

    A solid angle is expressed in a dimensionless unit called a steradian (symbol: sr). By default in terms of the total celestial sphere and before atmospheric’s scattering, the Sun and the Moon subtend fractional areas of 0.000546% (Sun) and 0.000531% (Moon).

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_angle#Sun_and_Moon

     

    On earth the sun is likely closer to 0.00011 solid angle after athmospheric scattering. The sun as perceived from earth has a diameter of 0.53 degrees. This is about 0.000064 solid angle.

    http://www.numericana.com/answer/angles.htm

     

    The mean angular diameter of the full moon is 2q = 0.52° (it varies with time around that average, by about 0.009°). This translates into a solid angle of 0.0000647 sr, which means that the whole night sky covers a solid angle roughly one hundred thousand times greater than the full moon.

     

    More info

     

    http://lcogt.net/spacebook/using-angles-describe-positions-and-apparent-sizes-objects

    http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/glossary/def.php.s=topic_astronomy

     

    Angular Size

    The apparent size of an object as seen by an observer; expressed in units of degrees (of arc), arc minutes, or arc seconds. The moon, as viewed from the Earth, has an angular diameter of one-half a degree.

     

    The angle covered by the diameter of the full moon is about 31 arcmin or 1/2°, so astronomers would say the Moon’s angular diameter is 31 arcmin, or the Moon subtends an angle of 31 arcmin.

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  • LUX vs LUMEN vs NITS vs CANDELA – What is the difference

    More details here: Lumens vs Candelas (candle) vs Lux vs FootCandle vs Watts vs Irradiance vs Illuminance

     

     

     

     

    https://www.inhouseav.com.au/blog/beginners-guide-nits-lumens-brightness/

     

     

    Candela

     

    Candela is the basic unit of measure of the entire volume of light intensity from any point in a single direction from a light source. Note the detail: it measures the total volume of light within a certain beam angle and direction.
    While the luminance of starlight is around 0.001 cd/m2, that of a sunlit scene is around 100,000 cd/m2, which is a hundred millions times higher. The luminance of the sun itself is approximately 1,000,000,000 cd/m2.

     

    NIT

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela_per_square_metre

     

    The candela per square metre (symbol: cd/m2) is the unit of luminance in the International System of Units (SI). The unit is based on the candela, the SI unit of luminous intensity, and the square metre, the SI unit of area. The nit (symbol: nt) is a non-SI name also used for this unit (1 nt = 1 cd/m2).[1] The term nit is believed to come from the Latin word nitēre, “to shine”. As a measure of light emitted per unit area, this unit is frequently used to specify the brightness of a display device.

    NIT and cd/m2 (candela power) represent the same thing and can be used interchangeably. One nit is equivalent to one candela per square meter, where the candela is the amount of light which has been emitted by a common tallow candle, but NIT is not part of the International System of Units (abbreviated SI, from Systeme International, in French).

    It’s easiest to think of a TV as emitting light directly, in much the same way as the Sun does. Nits are simply the measurement of the level of light (luminance) in a given area which the emitting source sends to your eyes or a camera sensor.

    The Nit can be considered a unit of visible-light intensity which is often used to specify the brightness level of an LCD.

    1 Nit is approximately equal to 3.426 Lumens. To work out a comparable number of Nits to Lumens, you need to multiply the number of Nits by 3.426. If you know the number of Lumens, and wish to know the Nits, simply divide the number of Lumens by 3.426.

    Most consumer desktop LCDs have Nits of 200 to 300, the average TV most likely has an output capability of between 100 and 200 Nits, and an HDR TV ranges from 400 to 1,500 Nits.
    Virtual Production sets currently sport around 6000 NIT ceiling and 1000 NIT wall panels.

     

    The ambient brightness of a sunny day with clear blue skies is between 7000-10,000 nits (between 3000-7000 nits for overcast skies and indirect sunlight).
    A bright sunny day can have specular highlights that reach over 100,000 nits. Direct sunlight is around 1,600,000,000 nits.
    10,000 nits is also the typical brightness of a fluorescent tube – bright, but not painful to look at.

     

     

    https://www.displaydaily.com/article/display-daily/dolby-vision-vs-hdr10-clarified

    Tests showed that a “black level” of 0.005 nits (cd/m²) satisfied the vast majority of viewers. While 0.005 nits is very close to true black, Griffis says Dolby can go down to a black of 0.0001 nits, even though there is no need or ability for displays to get that dark today.
    How bright is white? Dolby says the range of 0.005 nits – 10,000 nits satisfied 84% of the viewers in their viewing tests.
    The brightest consumer HDR displays today are about 1,500 nits. Professional displays where HDR content is color-graded can achieve up to 4,000 nits peak brightness.

    High brightness that would be in danger of damaging the eye would be in the neighborhood of 250,000 nits.

     

    Lumens

     

    Lumen is a measure of how much light is emitted (luminance, luminous flux) by an object. It indicates the total potential amount of light from a light source that is visible to the human eye.
    Lumen is commonly used in the context of light bulbs or video-projectors as a metric for their brightness power.

    Lumen is used to describe light output, and about video projectors, it is commonly referred to as ANSI Lumens. Simply put, lumens is how to find out how bright a LED display is. The higher the lumens, the brighter to display!

    Technically speaking, a Lumen is the SI unit of luminous flux, which is equal to the amount of light which is emitted per second in a unit solid angle of one steradian from a uniform source of one-candela intensity radiating in all directions.

     

    LUX

     

    Lux (lx) or often Illuminance, is a photometric unit along a given area, which takes in account the sensitivity of human eye to different wavelenghts. It is the measure of light at a specific distance within a specific area at that distance. Often used to measure the incidental sun’s intensity.

     

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  • DiffusionLight: HDRI Light Probes for Free by Painting a Chrome Ball

    https://diffusionlight.github.io/

     

     

    https://github.com/DiffusionLight/DiffusionLight

     

    https://github.com/DiffusionLight/DiffusionLight?tab=MIT-1-ov-file#readme

     

    https://colab.research.google.com/drive/15pC4qb9mEtRYsW3utXkk-jnaeVxUy-0S

     

    “a simple yet effective technique to estimate lighting in a single input image. Current techniques rely heavily on HDR panorama datasets to train neural networks to regress an input with limited field-of-view to a full environment map. However, these approaches often struggle with real-world, uncontrolled settings due to the limited diversity and size of their datasets. To address this problem, we leverage diffusion models trained on billions of standard images to render a chrome ball into the input image. Despite its simplicity, this task remains challenging: the diffusion models often insert incorrect or inconsistent objects and cannot readily generate images in HDR format. Our research uncovers a surprising relationship between the appearance of chrome balls and the initial diffusion noise map, which we utilize to consistently generate high-quality chrome balls. We further fine-tune an LDR difusion model (Stable Diffusion XL) with LoRA, enabling it to perform exposure bracketing for HDR light estimation. Our method produces convincing light estimates across diverse settings and demonstrates superior generalization to in-the-wild scenarios.”

     

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  • Polarised vs unpolarized filtering

    A light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane is referred to as unpolarized light. …

    Polarized light waves are light waves in which the vibrations occur in a single plane. The process of transforming unpolarized light into polarized light is known as polarization.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizing_filter_(photography)

    The most common use of polarized technology is to reduce lighting complexity on the subject.
    Details such as glare and hard edges are not removed, but greatly reduced.

    This method is usually used in VFX to capture raw images with the least amount of specular diffusion or pollution, thus allowing artists to infer detail back through typical shading and rendering techniques and on demand.

    Light reflected from a non-metallic surface becomes polarized; this effect is maximum at Brewster’s angle, about 56° from the vertical for common glass.

    A polarizer rotated to pass only light polarized in the direction perpendicular to the reflected light will absorb much of it. This absorption allows glare reflected from, for example, a body of water or a road to be reduced. Reflections from shiny surfaces (e.g. vegetation, sweaty skin, water surfaces, glass) are also reduced. This allows the natural color and detail of what is beneath to come through. Reflections from a window into a dark interior can be much reduced, allowing it to be seen through. (The same effects are available for vision by using polarizing sunglasses.)

     

    www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/u12l1e.cfm

     

    Some of the light coming from the sky is polarized (bees use this phenomenon for navigation). The electrons in the air molecules cause a scattering of sunlight in all directions. This explains why the sky is not dark during the day. But when looked at from the sides, the light emitted from a specific electron is totally polarized.[3] Hence, a picture taken in a direction at 90 degrees from the sun can take advantage of this polarization.

    Use of a polarizing filter, in the correct direction, will filter out the polarized component of skylight, darkening the sky; the landscape below it, and clouds, will be less affected, giving a photograph with a darker and more dramatic sky, and emphasizing the clouds.

     

    There are two types of polarizing filters readily available, linear and “circular”, which have exactly the same effect photographically. But the metering and auto-focus sensors in certain cameras, including virtually all auto-focus SLRs, will not work properly with linear polarizers because the beam splitters used to split off the light for focusing and metering are polarization-dependent.

     

    Polarizing filters reduce the light passed through to the film or sensor by about one to three stops (2–8×) depending on how much of the light is polarized at the filter angle selected. Auto-exposure cameras will adjust for this by widening the aperture, lengthening the time the shutter is open, and/or increasing the ASA/ISO speed of the camera.

     

    www.adorama.com/alc/nd-filter-vs-polarizer-what%25e2%2580%2599s-the-difference

     

    Neutral Density (ND) filters help control image exposure by reducing the light that enters the camera so that you can have more control of your depth of field and shutter speed. Polarizers or polarizing filters work in a similar way, but the difference is that they selectively let light waves of a certain polarization pass through. This effect helps create more vivid colors in an image, as well as manage glare and reflections from water surfaces. Both are regarded as some of the best filters for landscape and travel photography as they reduce the dynamic range in high-contrast images, thus enabling photographers to capture more realistic and dramatic sceneries.

     

    shopfelixgray.com/blog/polarized-vs-non-polarized-sunglasses/

     

    www.eyebuydirect.com/blog/difference-polarized-nonpolarized-sunglasses/

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  • 3D Lighting Tutorial by Amaan Kram

    http://www.amaanakram.com/lightingT/part1.htm

    The goals of lighting in 3D computer graphics are more or less the same as those of real world lighting.

     

    Lighting serves a basic function of bringing out, or pushing back the shapes of objects visible from the camera’s view.
    It gives a two-dimensional image on the monitor an illusion of the third dimension-depth.

    But it does not just stop there. It gives an image its personality, its character. A scene lit in different ways can give a feeling of happiness, of sorrow, of fear etc., and it can do so in dramatic or subtle ways. Along with personality and character, lighting fills a scene with emotion that is directly transmitted to the viewer.

     

    Trying to simulate a real environment in an artificial one can be a daunting task. But even if you make your 3D rendering look absolutely photo-realistic, it doesn’t guarantee that the image carries enough emotion to elicit a “wow” from the people viewing it.

     

    Making 3D renderings photo-realistic can be hard. Putting deep emotions in them can be even harder. However, if you plan out your lighting strategy for the mood and emotion that you want your rendering to express, you make the process easier for yourself.

     

    Each light source can be broken down in to 4 distinct components and analyzed accordingly.

    · Intensity
    · Direction
    · Color
    · Size

     

    The overall thrust of this writing is to produce photo-realistic images by applying good lighting techniques.

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  • Ethan Roffler interviews CG Supervisor Daniele Tosti

    Ethan Roffler
    I recently had the honor of interviewing this VFX genius and gained great insight into what it takes to work in the entertainment industry. Keep in mind, these questions are coming from an artist’s perspective but can be applied to any creative individual looking for some wisdom from a professional. So grab a drink, sit back, and enjoy this fun and insightful conversation.



    Ethan

    To start, I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time for this interview!

    Daniele
    My pleasure.
    When I started my career I struggled to find help. Even people in the industry at the time were not that helpful. Because of that, I decided very early on that I was going to do exactly the opposite. I spend most of my weekends talking or helping students. ;)

    Ethan
    That’s awesome! I have also come across the same struggle! Just a heads up, this will probably be the most informal interview you’ll ever have haha! Okay, so let’s start with a small introduction!

    Daniele
    Short introduction: I worked very hard and got lucky enough to work on great shows with great people. ;) Slightly longer version: I started working for a TV channel, very early, while I was learning about CG. Slowly made my way across the world, working along very great people and amazing shows. I learned that to be successful in this business, you have to really love what you do as much as respecting the people around you. What you do will improve to the final product; the way you work with people will make a difference in your life.

    Ethan
    How long have you been an artist?

    Daniele
    Loaded question. I believe I am still trying and craving to be one. After each production I finish I realize how much I still do not know. And how many things I would like to try. I guess in my CG Sup and generalist world, being an artist is about learning as much about the latest technologies and production cycles as I can, then putting that in practice. Having said that, I do consider myself a cinematographer first, as I have been doing that for about 25 years now.

    Ethan
    Words of true wisdom, the more I know the less I know:) How did you get your start in the industry?
    How did you break into such a competitive field?

    Daniele
    There were not many schools when I started. It was all about a few magazines, some books, and pushing software around trying to learn how to make pretty images. Opportunities opened because of that knowledge! The true break was learning to work hard to achieve a Suspension of Disbelief in my work that people would recognize as such. It’s not something everyone can do, but I was fortunate to not be scared of working hard, being a quick learner and having very good supervisors and colleagues to learn from.

    Ethan
    Which do you think is better, having a solid art degree or a strong portfolio?

    Daniele
    Very good question. A strong portfolio will get you a job now. A solid strong degree will likely get you a job for a longer period. Let me digress here; Working as an artist is not about being an artist, it’s about making money as an artist. Most people fail to make that difference and have either a poor career or lack the understanding to make a stable one. One should never mix art with working as an artist. You can do both only if you understand business and are fair to yourself.



    Ethan

    That’s probably the most helpful answer to that question I have ever heard.
    What’s some advice you can offer to someone just starting out who wants to break into the industry?

    Daniele
    Breaking in the industry is not just about knowing your art. It’s about knowing good business practices. Prepare a good demo reel based on the skill you are applying for; research all the places where you want to apply and why; send as many reels around; follow up each reel with a phone call. Business is all about right time, right place.

    Ethan
    A follow-up question to that is: Would you consider it a bad practice to send your demo reels out in mass quantity rather than focusing on a handful of companies to research and apply for?

    Daniele
    Depends how desperate you are… I would say research is a must. To improve your options, you need to know which company is working on what and what skills they are after. If you were selling vacuum cleaners you probably would not want to waste energy contacting shoemakers or cattle farmers.

    Ethan
    What do you think the biggest killer of creativity and productivity is for you?

    Daniele
    Money…If you were thinking as an artist. ;) If you were thinking about making money as an artist… then I would say “thinking that you work alone”.

    Ethan
    Best. Answer. Ever.
    What are ways you fight complacency and maintain fresh ideas, outlooks, and perspectives

    Daniele
    Two things: Challenge yourself to go outside your comfort zone. And think outside of the box.

    Ethan
    What are the ways/habits you have that challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone and think outside the box?

    Daniele
    If you think you are a good character painter, pick up a camera and go take pictures of amazing landscapes. If you think you are good only at painting or sketching, learn how to code in python. If you cannot solve a problem, that being a project or a person, learn to ask for help or learn about looking at the problem from various perspectives. If you are introvert, learn to be extrovert. And vice versa. And so on…

    Ethan
    How do you avoid burnout?

    Daniele
    Oh… I wish I learned about this earlier. I think anyone that has a passion in something is at risk of burning out. Artists, more than many, because we see the world differently and our passion goes deep. You avoid burnouts by thinking that you are in a long term plan and that you have an obligation to pay or repay your talent by supporting and cherishing yourself and your family, not your paycheck. You do this by treating your art as a business and using business skills when dealing with your career and using artistic skills only when you are dealing with a project itself.

    Ethan
    Looking back, what was a big defining moment for you?

    Daniele
    Recognizing that people around you, those being colleagues, friends or family, come first.
    It changed my career overnight.

    Ethan
    Who are some of your personal heroes?

    Daniele
    Too many to list. Most recently… James Cameron; Joe Letteri; Lawrence Krauss; Richard Dawkins. Because they all mix science, art, and poetry in their own way.

    Ethan
    Last question:
    What’s your dream job? ;)

    Daniele
    Teaching artists to be better at being business people… as it will help us all improve our lives and the careers we took…

    Being a VFX artist is fundamentally based on mistrust.
    This because schedules, pipelines, technology, creative calls… all have a native and naive instability to them that causes everyone to grow a genuine but beneficial lack of trust in the status quo. This is a fine balance act to build into your character. The VFX motto: “Love everyone but trust no one” is born on that.

     

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