Hi and welcome to the tutorial. This tutorial outlines a more advanced technique of intergrating 3D graphics with live action shots. This tutorial was done using 3DS Max but it can be applied to most any other 3D program. If you are a beginner in 3D graphics, this tutorial may be a little advanced for you, but if you wish to read it, please do so.

ALright, now, load up 3DS Max. Under the environment controls make sure the background color is pure black. Add the 3D object you wish to put in your scene (in this example a Battle Driod). Add all the animation and materials, camera angels, ect. that you wish to have. Now, in the view port of lets say Camera 01 put your background footage in by going to the top menu and selecting Views>Background Image (I think it's Viewport Background in MAX 3&4) then click files and find your background footage or image. Now, once you've done all your camera matching, tracking, animation, and so on, it's time to light your 3D object to match your footage. First, we are going to make a dome of lights to simulate the sky's light. That's right, the sky actually does give off light. We want to make a Target Direct light coming from directly above the 3d object pointing to the ground. Then we want to clone this one and make several copies to form the start of our "light dome." Go to the Front, Back, Right, or Left Viewports for the next step.

Select the move tool and click on the light. While holding the shift key, move the light at a downward angel and release after moving it just a little ways. Release and a menu will pop up that says Clone Options at the top. Under the objects section MAKE SURE that you change it from Copy to Instance. Instance allows you to make a change to a single light and that change will be duplicated in all the other cloned versions of that light. Continue this process until you have an arch of lights on the right side. Now, do the same thing to the left side of the top light. Now you should have a full 180 degree arch of lights. The fewer lights, the quicker the scene renders, but you need at least four lights on each side.

Now go to the top viewport, you should see a straight line of lights that is actually the top of the arch. Select the ENTIRE arch of lights and once again hold down shirt while you move the arch. Again, the Clone Options menu will pop up and you will once again want to select Instance. But this time set number of copies to 3. Delete the top light of these three copies, as we already have a top light in the original arch. Now, in the top viewport, position one of the arch copies to create a "plus" in the top viewport. Now, position the other two copies so that you have a "plus" with an "X" through it. If you look in your perspective or Camera viewport, you will see that you actually now have a "dome" of lights. This is very effective in faking the look of Global Illumination.

Now, select the top light and go to the modify panel to custumize it's parameters. Set the color to a very light blue (almost white-blue) Uncheck affect specualar. Set the multiplier to around 0.1 or 0.2. Now, go down to the Shadow Parameters Rollout. Set the Density to 1. Under the Shadow Map rollout set Bias to 0 (may need to be varied depending on closeness of the object 1 or 2 is the setting I used) Size to 600. And Sample Range to 6. This now produces the effect of Global Illumination from the sky. You can now select all of the lights and group them if you wish.

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