Stacked Slums

I’m excited to share my latest lighting study, based on the Leartes Studios "Stacked Slums" project. This piece is the direct result of a deep dive into Physically Based Lighting (PBL) following an incredible workshop hosted by CG Foundry, featuring guest speaker Karim Yasser.

The Process & Technical Breakdown:

The workshop was a masterclass in setting up a scene correctly from the ground up. Instead of jumping straight into placing lights, we focused on the science behind the pixels.

Foundation First: I spent a significant amount of time calibrating Project Settings, Camera Setup, and HDR Eye Adaptation.

The Numbers: We focused on accurate EV, Lux, and Nit values. Establishing this baseline before adding a single hero light changed my entire workflow.

Sky & Atmosphere: I utilized custom skyboxes and focused heavily on Sky Illuminance to ground the environment.

Lumen & Lighting Strategy: Once the foundation was set, I calibrated the hero light to complement the skybox. To keep the scene performant and avoid the "light soup" effect, I relied on Lumen emissive cards with unique materials to bounce light and dress the scene. Spotlights were used sparingly, only to pick out specific architectural details.

Creative Pivot & Optimization: Initially, I envisioned a "Tungsten Hurricane" vibe. However, as I refined the LookDev, the scene naturally evolved into a spookier, atmospheric shanty town.

I ran into some heavy GPU bottlenecks with my initial foreground and background elements. I made the call to remove them, and surprisingly, this improved the composition by forcing the focus entirely on the verticality of the structure.

Tools & Post-Processing:

William Faucher’s Easy Toolbag: Used for rapid fog placement (EasyFog) to build ambiance.

DaVinci Resolve 20: Handled the initial color grading and VFX compositing.

Photoshop Camera Raw: The final pass to pull out micro-details and homogenize the overall palette.

A huge thank you to CG Foundry and Karim Yasser for the invaluable knowledge!