Lighting & Compositing

Lighting & Compositing

The two roles are sometimes performed by one person, sometimes separated. It's a function of the type of project. Live action films have both CG and film elements so it made sense to separate the roles. Animation can be all CG so some studios want to keep everything in 3D so there wasn't much room for compositing 2D elements.

Photoshop like Tools - As a compositor I created visuals seamlessly incorporating illustration, photography, and computer generated imagery with Nuke, Composer and other proprietary tools that are roughly analogous to Adobe’s Photoshop and After Effects.

3D Tools - As a lighter I worked in a 3D software packages like Maya, Softimage or proprietary packages setting up lights so shots would feel consistent across the sequence with different camera angles. While scenes are setup like a multi camera live action stage, CG lighting at that time required many manual tweaks to make shadows and lighting believable. A normal shot would have multiple passes for diffuse lighting, specular highlights and shadows that would be rebalanced several times.  

Asset Management - A key part of the lighter's job is managing the assets that make up a shot and the rendered layers used for compositing. Communicating with the other team members about the state of elements is critical.

An Eye for Visual Detail - These visuals were done to a high standard of quality for major Hollywood films that would be projected on film or digitally, and eventually remastered for dvd and streaming. CG elements need to looked over closely for visual issues that are avoided in live action film and can make an element look artificial. These include sharp clipping of highlights, buzzing of very thin details, consistency of film grain, edge quality between sharp foreground elements and out of focus backgrounds, and the quality of blurring.

Art Directed - Lighting and compositing are the last phases in a CG pipeline. Your work has to pass the scrutiny of the entire creative leadership of the project. It is very subjective and there are many highly paid people whose opinions are worth more than yours. Direction can be very to the point and focused on details that most people can't see or articulate. One has to learn not to take it personally.

Teamwork - On film projects I collaborated in person or remotely with 200+ member crews of other artists, production, and creative leadership.

Iterative - On a daily basis, my work was looked at in isolation and in the context of other elements until each shot was complete. I was responsible for saving and logging my work so that if the direction changed any previous iteration could be recreated with the asset management tools.

Technical Resource Management- Rendering is expensive so being able to iterate quickly with a small processor footprint is valued. As artists we were conscious about being economical with our resources so we could get feedback on our work in a reasonable amount of time. We worked in a command line environment that allowed us to chain processes with scripting languages like C-shell, Perl and Python.

Leading Edge - These effects were pushing the envelope when they were done. A Hollywood effects film is big investment that's intended to wow an audience with spectacle and story. It is a unique environment to work on something that only exists in the Director's mind's eye and needs to be spectacular in 18 months after you've first start working on it.

Deadline Oriented - Movie release dates rarely change. All the work shown is done on a tight schedule with resources re-allocated as needed to meet the deadline. The work is done to a very high standard with a lot of effort.