Adobe After Effects CS4 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques

Chapter 12. Light

	There are two kinds of light: the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.
	--James Thurber

There’s more to understanding how light works in the world than knowing the science of it, although that is certainly essential. The work of a compositor is much like that of a painter or cinematographer, in that a combination of technical knowledge, interpretation, and even intuition are all part of getting a scene “right.”

Other areas of digital production rely on elaborate models to simulate the way light works in the physical world. Like a painter, the compositor observes the play of light in the three-dimensional world to re-create ...