Maybe brighten up those recessed lights slightly and make them more blue than white. You’ll still have the darkened foreground but it might be easier to see into the room.
Thanks for the idea 😃
I’ve been very careful not to blow up the lights too bright throughout what I’ve done so far. I despise flat lights XD
In this scene too, I feel it would introduce too much contrast, where my goal was to keep the contrast at what I feel is a comfortable level. I have been thinking on this though and I realised that the only parts of this scene I have shown are those parts where vader’s power has caused the lights to dim. here is a screenshot of the very start of this scene. I hope this allays any concerns about the grade for this scene.
I think a lot of the technical changes you plan for here sound really sensible.
Intending for this to be helpful feedback rather than criticism, however, personally I have a couple of issues with the colour grade which you might want to look into. Firstly, to me, your grading looks like it’s putting a brown/grey filter over everything, which I think is detrimental. Secondly, I think the filter is particularly affecting your human fleshtones, which I think look quite pallid, giving the characters pale skin and pinkness around the eyes.
As I say - not intending to criticise your work at all, merely offering that up in case it helps you tweak to achieve your desired effect.
There’s nothing wrong with criticism, it helps us all learn and grow. 😃
Thanks for your view on this. I have to say first off that there’s most certainly a lot more work gone into this and I’m sure your intention was not to downplay that at all, but I feel I need to show the HDR source I am working from.
from the HDR source, I apply a LUT that feels right to me, then I grad from there based purely on my memories of a Ralph McQuarrie artbook I used to own and also based on my own artistic choices and knowledge of how light works in real life.
I’m not discounting your observation, in fact I have shared your concern at times. It’s a fine line to walk though. at occasions during this process, i put the theatrical release on and have a look and i also put on the special edition and have a look. I feel like the theatrical looks better and the special edition looks garish and flat in places. This could just be a matter of taste.
yes, in some places it will look somewhat brown, but usually this is down to ambient light. a desert is brown so ambient light will be brown. good colour balance of a photograph would require the other colours to be muted, to create a gentle aesthetic.
Up to this point I’ve shown a desert planet and a dark space station with cold lighting. I’m looking forward to getting to yavin as I will be dealing with a very different environment and some different colours.
I hope you understand my process and I’d love to hear any further thoughts you have based on this.
Building on what EddieDean said, I suggest you should calibrate your monitor to a pretty good and somewhat accurate color-space if you are planning on color grading or color-matching shots. I feel like certain scenes make characters look really different, in the case of C-3PO, he looks more bronze than his gold colour. I’m simply giving constructive advice and hope for the best in what you will achieve for.
Thanks. yes calibration is important. I’ve gone to great lengths to calibrate my two screens. in actuality the TV has slightly lighter dark tones and a bit more saturation in the orange hues. to most people looking at a test card, the differences are imperceptible. I haven’t seen anyone mention the mask edge that is visible in that admirals hair while he is choking, as it’s not visible on my monitor but is visible on my TV it’s annoying, but when I look at calibration images, I literally can’t see the difference. It’s something I just have to live with.
About C3PO… he is gold and shiny and I don’t like it. I deliberately tone down the shiny yellow areas because damn it all, by my decree he will be dull. 😆
Lucas made the decision part way through production that the droids will be the main characters. I reject that notion, so I will attac C3PO and his bling. Sorry, this the way of the heathen ^^