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Character darker in some scenes than others, with identical lighting

RenderPretenderRenderPretender Posts: 1,041
in The Commons

Hello -

I'm working on a set in which one character appears to have noticeably darker skin tone in some scenes than others, The lighting and setting in all the images are identical, the only variable being the camera and light direction. I use the same camera in every scene, with the headlamp off. The only light is an environment light with some lamp emissives in the scene, all of which are always on.

Anyone else ever experienced this? It's driving me nuts!

Thanks.

Comments

  • RawArtRawArt Posts: 6,069

    The ambient light of a room will play on how skin tones look. But that is true in the real world too.

    Even when I make my characters, I can get them looking awesome when I have no environment around them...but then when I make my promos, they can look way different, so I have to tweak.

     

  • RenderPretenderRenderPretender Posts: 1,041
    RawArt said:

    The ambient light of a room will play on how skin tones look. But that is true in the real world too.

    Even when I make my characters, I can get them looking awesome when I have no environment around them...but then when I make my promos, they can look way different, so I have to tweak.

     

    I think you're right. I have been trying to sort whether I did something anomolous in the the scenes that are bothering me, but they're all essentially identical. I think it's going to be down to postwork or tweaking in the renders themselves. Not pointing the light source directly at the characters does seem to help, but I'm sure that camera angle and proximity to light (white) surfaces that reflect light plays a role too.

  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,181

    You could always check the light's temperature and try to match those, however, how the environment reacts to the light will also impact your character.

  • RenderPretenderRenderPretender Posts: 1,041
    FenixPhoenix said:

    You could always check the light's temperature and try to match those, however, how the environment reacts to the light will also impact your character.

    I think that's what's at play here. Oddly, though, it's only one of the two characters in the scene that looks different. Must be some quality of his skin.

  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,181
    masi3vee said:
    FenixPhoenix said:

    You could always check the light's temperature and try to match those, however, how the environment reacts to the light will also impact your character.

    I think that's what's at play here. Oddly, though, it's only one of the two characters in the scene that looks different. Must be some quality of his skin.

    Some characters come with several translucency skin options, so maybe check the character's skin's translucency value. The answer might be there. Other than that, if you're working on a comic or story my recommendation would be to use a skin shader on all characters so they are set up similarly. That way, their skins will react to light in a similar way. I really like Altern8 since it's very user friendly. It gives you a lot of options with one-click solutions to refine/tweak your skins.

  • RenderPretenderRenderPretender Posts: 1,041
    FenixPhoenix said:
    masi3vee said:
    FenixPhoenix said:

    You could always check the light's temperature and try to match those, however, how the environment reacts to the light will also impact your character.

    I think that's what's at play here. Oddly, though, it's only one of the two characters in the scene that looks different. Must be some quality of his skin.

    Some characters come with several translucency skin options, so maybe check the character's skin's translucency value. The answer might be there. Other than that, if you're working on a comic or story my recommendation would be to use a skin shader on all characters so they are set up similarly. That way, their skins will react to light in a similar way. I really like Altern8 since it's very user friendly. It gives you a lot of options with one-click solutions to refine/tweak your skins.

    That's for G8. He's G3. A free solution might be to fiddle with his diffuse color in the three problem scenes. The two characters are already set up identically throughout, so something ambient/environmental is going on in those problem scenes.

  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 8,048

    Just like on a real world studio set, you can add lights off camera, or alternatively use screens and light blocks off camera to control the amount of light hitting your subject.

  • RenderPretenderRenderPretender Posts: 1,041
    FirstBastion said:

    Just like on a real world studio set, you can add lights off camera, or alternatively use screens and light blocks off camera to control the amount of light hitting your subject.

    I know, but that impacts both characters in the scene. I ended up adding a pale gray base color to the one character in the offending scenes to compensate. Still never discerned exactly what the issue is.

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