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Virtual Light Lab

I've always found myself dissatisfied with current industry previsualization tools, either being too simple and lightweight to accurately represent real life situations, too mired in excess functionality to easily incorporate into a normal design workflow, or specifically geared towards concert lighting design. I wanted a light lab that facilitated theatrical design in a photorealistic simulation, so I decided to make one. This is a documentation on my current progress in this endeavor and what I have learned from it.

I decided to use unreal engine 5.5 for the creation of this lab for a number of reasons. By far the thing that stands out the most about it is the extrodinary fidelity and accuracy you can get out of its lumen lighting system with relatively little effort. Additionally, it has built in compatability with both vectorworks and various lighting consoles, making it not only easy for me to quickly get the project off the ground but also easy for users to incorporate elements of their design with the tools they already use in their standard workflow. I also wanted to explore unreal engine more personally, as I believe it has incredible potential as an archvis and digital art engine, both applications I have been and will continue exploring as I grow more confident with this engine.

Here is a simple demo I prepared with some basic lights and a prebuilt human model. I made the incandescent source fours use real IES photometry data provided by ETC for as accurate a pool of light as possible, which I then controlled using MA3 OnPC. Unreal also supports GDTF functionality, making it remarkably easy to incorporate any light you want to visualize by simply patching it in.

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