Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/863766
j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 7 c g w 4 3 F E A T U R E To manage the overall look, the team set up standards inside shaders to have con- sistency for the way in which shaders and lights worked together. "Radiance bouncing off objects would behave the same no matter which object it bounced from," White says. "We standard- ized the way lighting would play off a glanc- ing angle… things like that to keep everything feeling like it was in the same world. In shad- ing, they kept the materials predictable; they know how much light energy bounces back from materials, the albedo or reflectivity." With RIS, once the lights were set, the artists could see images that looked nearly final even in first renderings. This was so different from working with the earlier ren- derer that the artists needed to re-think what to do next. "There was a little learning curve," White says. "I was used to coming from a place where nothing was for free, so seeing stuff come in that we would have had to toil to get was interesting. We'd see McQueen in the set and he'd look good, but we'd see a reflection we wouldn't have gotten before. In the old world, we'd cheat that. But now, we might decide to leave it and see if it works. We had to learn when to leave something alone and when to push it." If they decided to push the image, they might add a rim light, or brighten an area for shaping, or shi the color. Or, use ani- mation to help. "The character Storm required a little work," White says. "That dark snout points down, so we'd lose the line of his mouth and would have to shine more lights to bring in his lips. And sometimes, we'd use animation to get the anisotropic feeling right on the side." Some of White's favorite scenes to light were those that required an interesting artistic touch. "When Hud is racing against the rookie and flips over him, it's like a little movie inside the movie, and also it's a memory, so Bill Cone, the production designer, Jeremy Lasky [DP, camera], and I thought about how to give it its own look and feel. Alfonso Caparrini took those ideas, created the mas- ter lighting, and lit all those shots. We looked at old film footage, considered what makes it look like it does, and played with compos- iting to push the look. And, Jose Ramos did a lot of work on the fog when they first arrive at the 'ghost track.' The shaders for the old wood look so good. We pulled in some at- mosphere – you can feel the humidity. But, even though it's very stylized, we still have all the reflections RIS gives us." In another scene, the old characters at- tempt to train McQueen by sending him on a fast race through a forest at night. "We had to make the forest look like you'd be afraid to drive in it," White says. "If I felt comfortable, I'd say, 'Let's put in a bunch of shadows.' We'd choreograph light pools that the cars moved in and out of, let the cars be in silhouette, have rim lights, go dark. Getting that to play was fun. It was fun to hack out the rhythm in lighting." White also singles out a time in the film aer Cruz beats McQueen. "We have a set of shots that Jose Ramos lit," White says. "He captured that sense of hope right before McQueen is crushed. I love the contrast. At the end, he's in shadow and she's in light." The switch to RIS meant that in general, lighters worked with fewer lights on this film than previous Cars films. That is, except for the Florida racetrack. "When we got to Florida, we said, 'Let's do it. Let's take advantage of what we've got,'" White says. The exciting night race was the perfect