I am glad to say I am back! I’ve been busy moving, but I’m almost all unpacked, so I figured I would post the new lighting pass I’ve been working on. I’ve tried to incorporate some more interesting lighting contrasts, including light and dark spots as well as color contrasts. I also added static meshes and lit the back room behind the red base (room A). Room A will be where some of the spawn points will be as well as the base’s weapons stockpile.
Room A (New)
Shot 1
Shot 2
And now for some comparison pictures of room B and C with their new lighting passes:
Room B
View 1
New
- Old
View 2
New
Old
View 3
New
Old
Room C
View 1
New
Old
View 2
New
Old
View 3
New
Old
After glancing at my updated lighting, it’s clear I made several changes. I had to use different techniques to get more interesting lighting in the level. For example, in each room, I made a huge, far reaching light that was had very low strength of a certain color. This was the base color for the room. Then, I used the physical static mesh lights as bases for adding accent lights onto that. In the crystal room (room C), I sometimes had to use more than one light to illuminate a crystal static mesh so that it would look like the lighting was coming from the crystal. I also tried to add more color to the scenes. In room C, I used a dark navy blue light as the background light (shows up in the darker spots), but I used more of an aquamarine-ish color for the light actually emitted from the crystals. The room is still semi-monochromatic, but yet the varying shades of blue add variety to the scene.
In the plant room (room B), I often had to use 2 lights right next to each other for each of the wall lights. One light was very orange, had a high brightness, and had a small reach. The other light was a little less orange and had a farther reach, but was much dimmer. I was trying to create a technique using the two lights to make the light fade out like I wanted it to, yet not diminish the look of the light emerging from the static mesh light. In terms of colors, I chose a yellowish color with a slight green tint (to give more of a ‘planty’ feel) as the base color that emerges from the chandeliers. This room also had 2 other types of lights. For the wall lights, I used 2 different orange colors. For the floor spotlights, I used a light yellow color. The yellow/green, the orange, and the pale yellow gave the room some contrast in terms of the colors, but not too much contrast. I had tried using more contrasting colors, but the color choices as they are now give more of a harmonious and unified feel to the room, yet also make it interesting to look at.
but that does give me more time to work on my own level designs and now I am able to sleep at night instead of the day (I guess I should re-name this blog, hehe). 
