let there be light....

I looked at an article showiung me how to light an animation set, i felt this would create the correct mood for the scene as well as helping to light the characters and scene properly so they were shown at there best. this way i was able to communicating visually the realism of the characters and scene that i wanted for the target audience.

I found the article about the correct way to light a scene at www.stopmotioncentral.com

Key Light
This is the main light. It is usually the strongest and has the greatest influence on the look of the scene. It is placed to one side of the camera/subject at anything from 15 to 45 degrees so that this side is nicely lit and the other side has some shadow.

Fill Light
This is the secondary light and is placed on the opposite side of the key light. It is used to fill the shadows created by the key. The fill is usually be softer in tone and less bright than the key. To achieve this effect, you could move the light further away or use greaseproof paper.

Back Light
The back light is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. Rather than providing direct lighting (like the key and fill), its purpose is to provide definition and subtle highlights around the subject's outlines. This helps separate the subject from the background and provide a three-dimensional look.

I took this information into account before lighting my set,but I found it wasnt so simple so I had to experiment with lighting to get the effect i wanted.

This is what worked best for my scene.

I continued to move the lighting around and experiment with how it looked, in the end i positioned the lighting so that there was a key light to illuminate the part of the scene where the action takes place a light that was aimed at the ceiling so that it bounced off illuminating the whole scene and a diffuse light that reduced the shadows and contrast by creating aneven light on the scene. I found that this approach worked so that my set was literally shown in the best light and this helped increase the overall quality of the animation.