Dominik Hildner

I talk about Lighting, Photography and beautifull things.

Senior Lighting Artist

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

@skx_doom Big fan of your work overall - and this looks like such a great lower cost, lower scalability option.
Hope to check it out one of these days!

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

That feeling when you find a nice spot to park your van to spend the night and then just hop out and look at a scene like this all evening, the light changing as the day passes.
Love that.
Sweden is beautifull.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Picture I took in Madaira some years ago.

That tree is barely holding on to the soil but still has some life in it. Also really liked the cow in the background.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

@martas_ Beautiful, soft light. love it

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Left: My Masterstudy recreation inside UE5

Right: original reference painting by Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898)

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Tried to capture golden light in one of my older lighting studies. Still really like this pice.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Misty morning vs. Sunset Lighting study in UE5

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

The result of my latest master study inside Unreal Engine:

The left is my recreation of the painting on the right inside unreal engine using megascans and marketplace assets - and lots of time to analyze the origial painting.

Reference is "At the Edge of the Forest", by Ivan Shishkin

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Yesterday I picked up old master studies again - currently recreating a painting from the 19th century.

First up I try and get the elements,geo and depth in the scene to somewhat match, but then the fun starts and I try and focus on analyzing the lighting, the quality of the light as well as its colors, the atmosphere and sky.
This is probably the most important and beneficial step. really taking some time to analyse what you see in the original painting, Like the softness of shadows, the light directions, negative Lighting (like fake occlusion or cloud shadows) to direct the view.
So much to learn from just looking at a single painting for hours.

Next step is to bring all that over and try and rebuild that specific look & feel inside Unreal.

While the results are not original work, its a excellent exercise to sharpen the artistic eye, figure out how to bring over look and feel from concept art etc into realtime, and just overall lots of fun.

After that I often extend the image (in engine I mean), extending the frame, or adding another camera angle.
This then allows me to apply what I learned in the original study to more screenspace.
Thinking about how that painter might have portrait the surroundings of the chosen frame? Is there even anything of interest outside the chosen shot?

So:
1. Look at the painting for a loooooong time.
2. Identify what makes it look the way it looks.
3 rebuild that feel and look in engine.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Yesterday I picked up old master studies again - currently recreating a painting from the 19th century.

First up I try and get the elements,geo and depth in the scene to somewhat match, but then the fun starts and I try and focus on analyzing the lighting, the quality of the light as well as its colors, the atmosphere and sky.
This is probably the most important and beneficial step. really taking some time to analyse what you see in the original painting, Like the softness of shadows, the light directions, negative Lighting (like fake occlusion or cloud shadows) to direct the view.
So much to learn from just looking at a single painting for hours.

Next step is to bring all that over and try and rebuild that specific look & feel inside Unreal.

While the results are not original work, its a excellent exercise to sharpen the artistic eye, figure out how to bring over look and feel from concept art etc into realtime, and just overall lots of fun.

After that I often extend the image (in engine I mean), extending the frame, or adding another camera angle.
This then allows me to apply what I learned in the original study to more screenspace.
Thinking about how that painter might have portrait the surroundings of the chosen frame? Is there even anything of interest outside the chosen shot?

So:
1. Look at the painting for a loooooong time.
2. Identify what makes it look the way it looks.
3 rebuild that feel and look in engine.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Snapshot I took of an abandoned building that just started the process of demolition.
It used to be a club before we moved to the city called Studio 24.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

@GTAVI_Countdown pretty much exactly what I want for my living room. small enough to be easily stored away or even in plain sight its not ugly or bulky.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Reminds me of the first time I viewed a - what looked at that time - 100% real video on the original Playstation portable. Bought a Concert video on these funny PS Portable discs as I had no money left for games at that time.
And there it was, was watching a video on a handheld device for the first time.
Might seem meh now, but back then it felt like a new world.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

@This_is_1984 @SawyerMerritt exactly my thought! ;) haha

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Just a photo of a swan.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

My main focus here was on the Sky - its built with a backplate of a plain HDRI Skydome with Volumetric clouds on top, as well as some hand placed cloud/fog cards to direct the volumetric clouds a bit better.
Lighting and grading and tonemapping done inside Unreal Engine

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

The goal for me visually here was to portrait the really soft and painterly afterglow of a sunsit, right after the sun dipped behind the horizon. That soft warm light that gets scattered around and bounces off the atmosphere, clouds and just fills the scene with a orange glow.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Gave it some color today. yay!
I had L O T S of fun lighting up this glowy, fogy Landscape.
Also my first try at Gaea 2 for Landscape creation on the moutnain in the background. Awesome tool so far.

While I went with a soft, glowy after sunset vibe for the final renders, I did experiment with some different tones and colors for a bit.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

A little black and white sneak peak on my lates Unreal Engine Lighting work.
Still finishing up colors, cameras and the little fine details, but I think the overall values are already where I want them to be.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Once people actually can own their own humanoid robot . . . the real life skins market for these will be huge.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

@Rainmaker1973 Real life Skins or lets say fashion tailord for humanoid robots is going to be a big thing in the next years.

[Dominik Hildner @hildner_]

Having quite a bit of fun in coming up with square compositions lately - both in my Photography and in my realtime Lighting studies like this one I am currentlz working on in UE5.

Its like looking at your scene with fresh eyes and the results you get in 1x1 just have a vibe to it.