ENDA Episode 171→ The time when ENDA gets in a bullet fight with John Wick (Part 4)

We’re back in the lair, and right in the middle of a storm of gunfire.

This time, we needed to add interactive lighting, and to do that properly, we first had to understand how the light actually works and how it interacts with different materials in the scene.

The key is remembering that the muzzle flash is the light source.

The closer you are to it, the brighter your interactive light will be.

But here’s the catch: the material of the object also influences how much light it reflects and how much it absorbs.

The skin on the face and hands is non-reflective and is easily influenced by intense light.

The dark suit is also non-reflective, but because of its colour and material, it absorbs much more light. As a result, the interactive lighting on the suit is far dimmer than on the skin, even on the sleeves, which are physically closer to the gun.

Then we have the floor, which is made of wood. If we look closely at how the light behaves on it, we notice two things:

🔹 The reflection tends to blur quite a lot

🔹 The brightness falls off as it moves further away from the source.

Finally, and far from least important, we have the henchmen’s armour.

This is metal, and therefore reflective. That makes it much easier for the light to bounce off it. The highlights on the metal tend to be brighter than on other materials. 

Of course, as with everything else, the further the armour is from the muzzle flash, the weaker that highlight becomes.

It might seem like a lot of information to keep in mind for just one shot, but this level of consideration is completely normal when dealing with lighting. Once you get used to it, you start focusing more on very specific details.

Like, for example, the smoke that comes from the muzzle fire…

But that will be for another episode.

The journey continues...