Winter Portal Light Test

Starting off with an environment created using Quixel Megascans and a sky from Ultra Dynamic Sky for Unreal Engine

For the first step, I added a directional light with a whitish/blue color to cool down the environment and work with the orange lantern lights that would later be added in.

Next, I added a blocker behind the door to remove the glowing that was starting to occur. This also kept the sharp shadows along the pathway (which I liked) while flattening out the highlights on the snow for a calmer look.

After this, I added a rim light to help accentuate the light hitting the side of the door.

The rim light from the last step was duplicated, moved back, and opened up some more to act as somewhat of a fill. This helped balance things out a bit and provide some slight splashes of light for the top of the scene.

Next, I added the lantern lights! A major goal of this project was to work with practical lights to see how they can be successfully integrated into an environment. The lights tend to get slightly brighter and more saturated towards the center.

Soft, orange, fill lights were added (now that the lanterns serve as motivation).

Next, I added a glowing orange light to the center of the door to draw our attention. A second sharper and more colorful light was also added here to make the door edges pop.

After getting the render from the last step, I edited the image to add a bit of grain and saturation amongst other things!