Environment Lighting: Day vs. Night
This project explores the dramatic shift in narrative and mood through lighting, texture, and atmospheric effects. Using a high-fidelity 3D environment, I developed two distinct scenarios, a sun-drenched, dusty afternoon and a moody, cinematic night, to demonstrate a full production pipeline from texturing to final composite.
Texturing
Used Substance 3D Painter to create realistic PBR materials, adding small surface flaws and micro-dust so textures react naturally to strong volumetric daylight.
Lighting & Rendering
Set up both scenes in Autodesk Maya with Arnold.
Compositing
Finished in Nuke with multi-layer EXR passes to tweak AOVs. Used volume/emission passes to wrap light around objects and added custom grain and floating particles for a dusty, tactile daytime feel.
