Light and Lightsabers

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 13:58:06 GMT

So tree gave me a fun lightsaber related art prompt, which led me to looking up Star Wars screenshots to get get a feel for the way the coloured light would reflect off noses etc. And realised it generally doesn't, at least not in the original trilogy and prequels.

Compare for example this shot of Anakin next to a blue lightsaber to this shot of a guy demonstrating his prop light saber. With Anakin, the only parts of his face that go blue are those directly under the halo of light around the saber. With a real glowing blue stick, blue light reflects off any part of the face facing the saber, even those a little distance away. It's even more obvious in promotion shots.

The new movies seem to do better. Compare this almost monochrome shot of Luke holding a blue lightsaber in the dark versus this shot of Finn with blue light all over the place.

I never noticed this before but now I can't unsee it. I guess doing all this 3D modelling has made me more aware of light reflections. And I mean, I understand! Adding in fast moving coloured lights is (a) tricky and (b)creates some weird effects that will often be counter to the visual look you want. But I feel better now about always having found getting lightsabers to "look right" a bit challenging :)

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Light and Lightsabers