Any Lighting Programs Available?

L

Leon Trinidad

Active member
Just curious, are there any good lighting programs out there for DP's? Maybe a 3d program that lets you setup a basic room with windows, and some props, and let you throw in some lighting setups and see some basic results. That would be nice! Just curious, there has to be something out there?

Let me know guys. Thanks.
 
That's a cool PDF, good info. I'm looking for a lighting program, that runs on a computer. A 3d program that will let me set up a room with props, actors, design a lighting setup within the room and see some results, that way I can organize my setups the day before and give my gaffer basic setup info to prelight. Then I can adjust how I see fit on the set.

Maybe I'm just dreaming.
 
That is for a lighting board. I use lightwave for my lighting previz. Its pretty accurate and the one thing you have to pay attention to is the ambient light in the scene because thats going to make a big diff on set. If you can't control the ambient on set, its not going to look like the render from your 3D program.
 
I suppose a program is nice, but I'd seriously learn to use data sheets like this....

http://www.lightningstrikes.com/pdf/100K_Brochure.pdf

Thats what the pros have been doing for years, and they are totally free! Arri has great photometric data on all their fixtures, you can select the lamp head, globe type, AND your lens, and bam! Accurate photometric data. I'm a big preacher of light meters around here, well, here's another reason why.... Lux and foot candle measurements. Those two are not exposure measurements, just measurements of brightness. I take it a step further though, I've figured out how much Lux and FC need to strike an 18% gray object in order for me to have a "proper" exposure... Now thats pretty darn powerful and no fancy program is needed. Also keep in mind, those programs don't take reflectance of your real world objects into account either, so what you get isn't really great info on what fixtures you need. They are nice for viewing the modeling of lighting, but thats about it.

Just my two cents. And yes, I use photometrics all the time, especially for big shoots where I'm concerned about getting proper light levels. I'm currently working as DP on some big promos and I'm using photometrics heavily to present an argument to the production company that I need at least one 2.5K Par and generator to shoot these spots, so theres another great use for it :thumbsup:
 
I use all of the major 3D applications in my studio. I have found that with 3DS Max, it's fairly accurate to setup a scene and light it if you use the photometric data file you can download from various sources.
Most all lighting fixtures/elements are registered in a database. This info is written to an ascii file that contains the angle of projection, intensity values and cast pattern/shape. The 3D app displays this as an accurate light in your render.
 
Anim8 said:
I use all of the major 3D applications in my studio. I have found that with 3DS Max, it's fairly accurate to setup a scene and light it if you use the photometric data file you can download from various sources.
Most all lighting fixtures/elements are registered in a database. This info is written to an ascii file that contains the angle of projection, intensity values and cast pattern/shape. The 3D app displays this as an accurate light in your render.
Click to expand...

But can the program recreate the reflectance of the room accurately?.... Without that, all your photometric data is somewhat useless.... or at least not accurate anymore. Are all objects set to 18% gray? That might be somewhat useful, but it still leaves a lot of questions up in the air since the whole world is not 18% gray. I think thats why film lighting pre-viz programs haven't really caught on.
 
If you use radiosity yes, it calculates light bounce and as long as you surface the objects like what you will have in the scene, the reflectiveness of color will also be calculated. I would mostly use a 3D program for lighting design tests to see if the pools of light and color would look good and give the mood. You will never get it exact because no one would ever sit there and measure the angles and such for every barn door and fixture. 3D programs give a great over all picture of what the lights would do if you place them here or there for a DP. After that, it would probably get too technical.
 
Second that, a 3D program will work wonders for you. I generally set up a rough of the actually set to scale, then place lights, and camera settings to match the right I'll have on the day. It would be beneficial however to read up on mental ray and more powerful rendering engines, which offer significantly more accurate light reading.
 
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