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title: "Toy Car Lighting"
canonical: "https://rmanwiki-27.pixar.com/space/RU/655065134/Toy%20Car%20Lighting"
format: markdown
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### Lighting

For the lighting phase, I used a custom HDRI captured from a real-world setup I built specifically for the turntable shoot. After filming the video, I took a 360° HDRI using my phone and processed it into a usable environment map.

> Macro (widget)

*A quick behind-the-scenes moment with my dad while setting up the scene.*


To better control shadow definition, I added a single spotlight in CG that matched the main shadow direction seen in the footage. This allowed me to reinforce the lighting without deviating from the physical reference.

I converted the HDR image to ACEScg inside Nuke before using it in RenderMan. This ensured proper color management across the pipeline and allowed the lighting to behave predictably in CG.

The Smoking Gnome is an excellent opportunity for users to dissect a RenderMan-centric project, designed to take advantage of interactive workflows in RenderMan XPU. Play with the project, create some interesting lighting, and have fun!


![image2.jpg](media://95be937f-ae79-4149-8f86-553e0f1ac14e)

Before integrating the HDRI into the scene, I performed a tone-matching step in Nuke using the mid-gray value from the checkerboard captured in the footage. This helped align the HDRI’s overall light intensity with the real-world setup, ensuring that lighting direction and energy levels in RenderMan remained both visually and physically accurate.

![image15.jpg](media://967b56ef-345d-4ab0-aee9-f423facdb70f)

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