This week, I mainly worked on lighting adjustments and animation, with a focus on lighting. I’ve decided to leave the animation for next week, so I first tried adding volumetric fog and setting up the lights.
The DirectionLight seemed too bright, it actually made the environment I created hard to see, and it overexposed the original colors of the materials, which lost a sense of realism (P1). I then adjusted its position again. This time the color looked more textured, but it was still too intense and a bit exaggerated for my taste (P2).
After that, I followed a tutorial video on setting up ambient light, but I couldn’t get it to look the same as in the tutorial. So I dimmed it down first, went to the ExponentialHeightFog light settings, enabled Volumetric Fog, and kept adjusting the angle and position of the light. I also changed the Intensity Scale of the SkyLight and tweaked it many times. Eventually, the environment looked better, and this is the environment that I chose.
Then, I began adjusting the composition of the scene. To make the upcoming camera animation work better, I angled all the tall trees toward the center to create a visual guiding effect, especially in the initial forest, to build an atmosphere that subtly pushes “you” forward.
