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Please help with lights in After Effects
Hi there. I have built a 3D scene in AE which consists of 4 walls forming a long tunnel type of shape. The idea is that the tunnel is so long that in the beginning it’s dark, pitch black actually and as the camera travels closer and closer to the end of the tunnel it gets brighter and brighter. But no matter how I set my lights I can’t get this effects. The whole tunnel is lit the same. I have tried spot, point, parallel, ambient, tried having the light far away and increase intensity or have it right at the end of the tunnel, nothing worked. Is it because the tunnel is not long enough? I would not think so because if that was the case it would have worked when I decreased the light intensity. How do I get this effect? Thanks.
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11 Replies
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The only light that has some kind of attenuation is a spot light. It has cone feather attribute, but I don`t think it`s gonna help you.
What I would do:
Place a light in front of your camera (or even at the same position) and parent it to camera. As camera moves towards exit increase intensity of this light.
Or
Leave everything like it is and just add adjustment layer on top and apply exposure effect. Keyframe this effect so you go from complete dark to bright light. At the end of the tunnel apply lens flare to spice it up 🙂
Cheers. -
[Place a light in front of your camera (or even at the same position) and parent it to camera. As camera moves towards exit increase intensity of this light. ]
This sounds easier than the adjustment layers option. Can you keyframe the light intensity increase?
I just thought of just do a gradient over the textures I’m using for the walls in Photoshop, going from black to transparent. But not sure it wouldn’t look too fake. Your ideas may be better. Thanks.
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Just thought of something that would not work very well with parenting the light to the camera and increasing the light intensity as the camera advances towards the end of the tunnel. In reality, we would see the brighter end with the light spilling over the walls closer to the end while it gradually faded to black towards us. We would see that from the distance already. But parenting the light to the camera you never see that gradation. All that happens is the brightness gradually goes up as we go, which is different from seeing the brighter part of the gradation advancing towards us. Does that make sense?
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You don`t need Photoshop for it. Apply Ramp effect to every wall. On top of that apply CC Composite. Play with start and end colors in Ramp as well with “blend with original”. In CC Composite play with opacity and blending modes. Variety of results unlimited.
Also you can add CC Glass on top of all (if you have some texture on your walls) but I don`t know how complicated it may get for you. There was a tutorial by A. Kramer (something about bump maps and walls).
Cheers. -
The kramer tutorial on v-pilot is a good bet, using bump maps and linking the comp light to the cc glass light, the effect is pretty awesome and the expression used is extremely usefull for linking effect lights to comp lights as they sometimes operate in different space.. also check out Dan Ebberts expression lab, there is an expression that links the distance of the light to the layers specular and diffusion properties making the light fall off realistically as the layers moves away or in your case get brighter as the light gets nearer to the layer, this will only work for the back wall of your tunnel and layers that are facing directly forward, side walls should already light up convincingly… no?
hope this helps
H
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Ok, there is a trick I’ve learned when I was learning 3ds Max and its lights… I’ve just checked it and it worked in AE. I didn’t bother to create a 3D tunnel, I’ve just created a solid 720×2000 and placed it horizontally and make my camera move along it. On the far end I’ve put a point light with intensity about 280%. At the closest to the camera (before it starts to move along the solid) I’ve put another point light and turned down intensity to -200%. I’ve got an effect that you are probably looking for. Of course, you have to play with numbers for your particular situation, but you’ve got an idea.
Another option you may consider is placing spot lights with cone angle 180* and cone feather 100% along the way through your tunnel increasing intensity towards exit. For 2000 pxl long solid I’ve used 5 lights with intensity 20% (closest light), 65, 85, 105 and 130% (far light near “exit”). It worked but I did get different look from situation with point lights. Again, it’s just an idea, you have to play with number of lights, their positions and intensity.
Hopefully, it will help.
Viacheslav. -
Thanks Viacheslav and Hannah.
[this will only work for the back wall of your tunnel and layers that are facing directly forward, side walls should already light up convincingly… no? ]
No, the side walls don’t light up convincingly at all. As I said they should be brighter on the opened end of the tunnel (end of tunnel) but they are all the same brightness. There’s no back wall by the way. The end of the tunnel is open and the light there is supposed to be sun light, hence why it needs to get brighter as the camera gets closer to the open end.
Viacheslav, will your new suggestions get me the right effect which is getting from the dark to the brighter side of the tunnel and or have the brighter side of the gradient advances towards us instead of the brightness change of the first suggestions?
by the way, do you guys know the name of the Andrew Kramer tutorial you mentioned? Thanks everybody.
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Thanks a lot for trying it out Viacheslav. This sounds great. I guess that will do the trick. I kind of like the first idea better but will surely try both. My tunnel is 24000 pxl long x 2000 pxl tall/wide in a 1080 HD composition.
I also have to have two video clips at the end of the tunnel, one in front of the other and the first one needs to be keyed. It’s an element shot against black background. Been experimenting with both ways but do you see any advantage in turning the clips into 3D layers or should I just leave them as 2D cards?Thanks.
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Did you try the trick with point lights I described above?
Let me know if it works for you.
Ramp effect along with CC Composite will give you flexibility in sense of where exactly you want your walls start to get brighter and how much brighter. Just be careful about what your start and end colors are and where you position them. You can use different settings for floor and side walls. Probably, the best way is to pre-compose every of your walls (leave all attributes) and apply Ramp and CC Composite in pre-comp.
As always, the right answer is somewhere in between, I mean, quite often it’s better to use a mix of different techniques and approaches to get best results. So you may want to try everything what’s been said here.
A. Kramer’s tutorial:
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/ae_bump_maps/
Viacheslav. -
No, I have not tried it yet but am about to. Check my reply above or on this direct link for mere : https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/956576
The way the forum truncates the messages makes it confusing some times, but I had already replied above 😉
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