Mad Science Lighting Challenge

For this project, I lit everything in V-Ray, textured most things with Mari, and composited with Nuke. My lighting was a little too basic for my first iteration, so I decided to shoot for a more moody feel.

My light set-up was one rectangle light in front for the key light, one rectangle light above for fill, a dome light that has an IBL texture for reflections only, and two sphere lights on either side for blue fill. I had the GI in my scene set to a blue tint, but I wasn't getting the amount of blue I wanted, so I added some low intensity lights with only diffuse contribution. I thought that the front rectangle light would be a nice touch to the mood because it reads as an open doorway, which leaves a little mystery to the piece.

For the rat in the scene, I used V-Ray fur. It isn't really noticeable because it is so dark in that area of the image, but I thought it would be better to have it than not at all. I also used V-Ray's SSS material for the skin of the rat and the brain. 

For compositing, I took advantage of V-Ray's great lineup of render elements. I used the Light Select render element to separate all of my lights and take advantage of being able to tweak each one of those individually. In comp, I brought up the blues just to give the piece a little more color contrast. As a final touch, I added a glows to the rat's eye and radio.

Thanks to Rob Garcia for the brain the jar model.