Then there is this beautiful sentence that makes so much sense : I mean understanding all these connections before PBR is just brilliant. in this discussion of lighting for synthetic cinema we will find that many live-action concepts apply. The commonality between live-action lighting and computer lighting is chiefly the thought process. I just love how back in 1996 Sharon Calahan had already understood so many concepts : In a movie production, we are so camera dependent : animation, lighting, set dressing… We rely completely on the framing. My teachers have always told me : composition is the most difficult part of an image. Yes ! Gestalt theory is not exactly about lighting. Most of it is not noticeable on a conscious level to the viewer, but adds depth and richness to the story and the visual experience. Visual storytelling is a vast topic that reaches far beyond the realm of lighting. Yes ! CG do have special needs that have to be accounted for. The part from Sharon Calahan starts in a great way :Īlthough much of the content of this course is not solely applicable to lighting on the computer, its special needs are always in mind. Storytelling through lighting Calahan Introduction Many artists actually do not know about its existence. The Siggraph 2019 course from Dave Walvoord mentions some concepts clearly coming from Gestalt… But without mentioning even once the name of the theory itself. So in this chapter I am going to read through this course, list the Gestalt principles and add some movie examples to make them even clearer. I guess that during the presentation there were more images, but unfortunately they are not many available in the pdf. There is one thing missing though : examples from movies, comics or paintings to illustrate her notes. So all this stuff is pretty irrelevant.īut all the Gestalt Principles described by Ms Calahan are still valid. Back in 1996, there was no GI, so you had to fake most of the lighting. Obviously all the technical parts are completely outdated. I decided to read the course and see what would come out of it. ![]() The course notes are available online here and are as pertinent today as they were in 1996. In the interview reference is made to Ms Calahan’s contribution to the 1996 SIGGRAPH session “Pixel Cinematography”. More Gestalt connectionsįunnily enough, I recently realized that Craig Welsh also mentioned this course in his blog in 2014 : It is pretty clear that all these concepts were used massively at Pixar. This Siggraph talk was done four years before the short film For the birds. I guess you already know what is the main topic of this course : Gestalt Theory ! I could not believe my eyes ! Pixar talking about Gestalt Theory. It is a note from the 1996 SIGGRAPH session where Sharon Calahan talks about lighting principles : “ Cool ! Let’s see what Pixar had to say about Cinematography back in 1996 !” Thirteen years later, I was doing some research for my book and I found about the Pixel Cinematography course. A more accurate term overall would be “principles of perceptual organization.” Gestalt and Pixar Wikipedia uses the term “Gestalt Psychology” probably because the Gestalt principles exposed in the early 20th century were then taken up by psychoanalysts and theorized into a new form of therapy (the Gestalt Therapy). If only I could have connected the dots, I would have realized that this Pixar short film was using Gestalt Theory on almost every shot. Anyway, after graduating, I forgot about Gestalt and went on with my career. To be honest, I was discovering Maya at the same time and I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of data to process that I kinda lost track of my main purpose : making great pictures. Mostly technical stuff.Īs a student this example can be unsettling. As students we would much more focus on displacement maps and area lights. And the theory seemed a bit old-fashioned. He mainly described it as a theory of the shapes.īack then I did not realize its importance because I was so worried about specular values or if I should use a Blinn or a Phong material. During my two years of study with him, he mentioned the concept a lot. Gestalt at schoolīack in 2006, I had a teacher at Supinfocom, called Marc Bigeast, who was very interested by Gestalt Theory. And knowing about these principles can be very helpful. But my job is very dependent of the framing of a shot. ![]() Artists working in layout and set dressing would certainly know better. This theory is more about composition anyway. Unfortunately I do not have many personal lighting examples about Gestalt. ![]() ![]() Actually you never hear it in the lighting department. Gestalt is not a term you will hear a lot in a studio. It took me around fifteen years to get a proper look at this topic. I am going to detail here my personal journey through Gestalt Theory. Simplicity principle (Pragnanz or Good Figure).
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