AE CS6 – Controlling Lights

[David Tunnell]

I have watched most of the basic series and I have reviewed most of the Cow tutorials, but none that I found were on controlling lights. There are a lot of tutorials on controlling cameras and building camera rigs and I think lights are much more difficult than cameras.

Thanks,

David Tunnell
TunnellVision Productions

[Walter Soyka]

David, can you be a bit more specific about what it is you are looking to learn?

You’re absolutely right that good lighting is more important with the 3D ray-tracer. Are you familiar with real-world, physical lighting techniques?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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[David Tunnell]

I have always had trouble getting the lights to behave and point in the correct direction when I moved them back in z space. I may just be dense. But I was trying to back light a 3D scene with a spot light and was getting frustrated because it wasn’t behaving as I expected.

Even this guy at Motionworks who demonstrates materials for the new AE6 mentions the frustration of controlling 3D lights.

Thanks,

David Tunnell
TunnellVision Productions