{"id":522,"date":"2014-04-04T11:43:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T11:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigscreens.blog.oldabbeytheatre.net\/?p=522"},"modified":"2015-03-04T23:29:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T23:29:35","slug":"applying-lighting-to-and-creating-rendered-images-of-our-3d-model-for-the-hour-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigscreens.blog.oldabbeytheatre.net\/?p=522","title":{"rendered":"Applying lighting to our three-dimensional scenography model for The Hour-Glass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today I met with my colleges Siyao and Steven in an to attempt to apply some of our previous research on, and prior learning about, the use of software-based rendering engines and lighting plug-ins with\u00a0SketchUp Make<\/a>. \u00a0We hoped to review our research about Edward Gordon Craig’s and W.B. Yeats’s stage designs for the Abbey theatre in Dublin, in an endeavour to apply lighting to our colleague\u00a0Laura’s finished three dimensional (3D) model for The Hour-Glass<\/a>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For this purpose, and as a direct result of Siyao’s technical research<\/a> on and evaluation<\/a> of suitable software,\u00a0we settled on using the free\u00a0Kerkythea rendering engine<\/a> and corresponding plug-in<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for SketchUp Make. <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In-keeping with the overall project aims<\/a>, we hoped\u00a0to create some rendered images of Craig’s scenic designs for The Hour-Glass (Yeats Irish Theatre), with applied lighting settings, to visualise how the screens may have appeared when they were in use at the Abbey theatre. The resulting rendered images will then be published by Siyao on this project blog site (these images can be viewed by clicking here<\/a>). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In further acknowledgement of the principles set-out in the London Charter for digital cultural heritage visualisation<\/a>\u00a0(Denard, London Charter), we decided \u00a0to publish an account of our experiences in an attempt to make our methodological\u00a0process as transparent as possible. \u00a0For a more detailed discussion of how the London Charter applies to our visualisation project, please see Gr\u00e1inne’s blog post<\/a>. \u00a0All of the images included below are hyper-linked, please click on any image to open an enlarged version. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence: Choosing appropriate colours for lighting our scene from The Hour-Glass<\/strong><\/p>\n

Initially we decided to create our rendered images, with applied lighting, using the ‘full’ Hour-Glass 3D model\u2014which includes Laura’s 3D model of Craig’s screens in situ<\/em>\u00a0within a 3D model of the old Abbey theatre<\/a> stage, that was designed by\u00a0Noho<\/a> (Denard, Old Abbey). \u00a0Our rationale for doing so was such that; we wished to allow potential visitors to the project blog site the opportunity to meaningfully contextualise how Edward Gordon Craig’s screens may have been lit, as they appeared on the Abbey theatre stage.<\/p>\n

Reviewing the discussion that emerges from our research on Craig’s use of lighting, it seems that Craig preferred to light scenes as minimally as possible–by\u00a0removing all unnecessary lighting from the scene. \u00a0Writing on Craig\u2019s interest in depicting contrast between light and dark–through his frequent and purposeful inclusion of steps, stairs and right-angled shapes to create shadows within his scenic designs,\u00a0Jenifer\u00a0Buckley (European Avant-gardes<\/a>)\u00a0notes how Craig\u2019s:<\/p>\n

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\u2018drawings for <\/em>[a production of a play entitled] The Steps are primarily concerned with the ways in which light can be used as a plastic element to shape the viewer\u2019s response to geometrical forms\u2019\u00a0<\/em>(53).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Buckley goes on to\u00a0discuss how Craig\u2019s vision for a new kind of theatre offered a marked departure from the traditions of ‘realistic theatre’ by allowing \u2018tender liquid light to feel its way across\u2019 (62) a minimised stage setting. \u00a0These intentions seem to be somewhat reflected in a woodcut engraving by Craig, which depicts his scenic designs for Yeats’s poetic drama The Hour-Glass. \u00a0An image of Craig’s woodcutting appears in a book by Liam Miller (<\/span><\/span>Noble Theatre\u00a0<\/span><\/span>161), within which Craig’s\u00a0<\/span><\/span>use of strong bold lines appears to emphasise, not only a contrast between light and dark, but also captures Yeats’s intended divergence\u00a0<\/span><\/span>between the two\u00a0<\/span>central\u00a0<\/span><\/span>characters in his play; the Fool and the Wise Man. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is some evidence to suggest that a colour-scheme of purple and red-brown\u00a0with olive-green curtains (see Gr\u00e1inne Kelly’s post entitled\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The Hour-Glass & Evidence for our Visualisation<\/a>) was used in the Abbey theatre production of The Hour-Glass. \u00a0However, it is also\u00a0<\/span><\/span>reasonable\u00a0to\u00a0<\/span>assume\u00a0that this colour-scheme may have applied only to the costumes for the characters, and not to the colour of the screens (which Gr\u00e1inne Kelly notes as being ivory in colour)\u00a0or even to the stage lights. \u00a0As James Flannery (Visual Arts 87) notes:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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‘Yeat’s first experiment with this new style of decor <\/em>[that is, one which Yeats adopted as a result of Craig’s influence] was made with The Hour-Glass, when it was first produced at the Molesworth Hall on 14 March 1903. Staged with the costumes designed by Robert Gregory according to an overall design created by T.Sturge Moore, the colour scheme was striking and effective. The action, as Yeats describes it, took place in front of an olive-green curtain, with the Wise Man and his Pupils dressed in various shades of purple. A third colour, subordinate to the other two, was added by dressing the Fool in a red-brown costume with touches of green to harmonize with the curtain<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Flannery’s comments take on a further significance when we consider how strongly opposed, its seems, that Craig may have been to over-use of colour<\/span><\/span>. \u00a0Craig himself writes that the realistic stage is:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018over-charged with spectacular material, with the massiveness of properties, with the carnevalesque confusion and riot of colours, thus becoming a chaos, which abolished all the laws of theatrical optics, the most elemental rules of Aesthetics<\/em>\u2019 (Living Theatre<\/a> 37). \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Similarly,\u00a0Craig also writes that a competent stage-director must come know how to select \u2018certain colours which seem to him to be in harmony with the spirit of the play, rejecting other colours as out of tune\u2019 (Art of Theatre<\/a>\u00a0157). \u00a0Here Craig insists that colour should be used sparingly, and only to represent the primary elements of the scene that embody the ‘spirit’ of play.<\/p>\n

A further example of this line of thinking is evident where Craig asserts that the complex works for the stage by William Shakespeare might be represented in just two simple colours; \u2018one for the rock, the man; one for the mist, the spirit\u2019 (23). \u00a0Craig adds that in designing costumes and scenes one must \u2018forget not that each colour contains many variations\u2019 (ibid.). \u00a0As such, Craig notes that \u2018tone and colour\u2019 can be brought \u2018downwards until it reaches nearly to the level of the floor [with care taken] to bring this colour and this tone down in some place which is removed from the material rock-like substance\u2019 (25). \u00a0Morever, as Karen Dorn notes\u00a0in her account of the professional collaboration between Yeats and Craig (Dialogue Into Movement), Yeats himself also indicated that it is the Fools wig<\/em>\u00a0that should be \u2018red and matted\u2019 (129). <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, we have made [what we believe to be] the<\/span><\/span>\u00a0reasonable assumption that the lighting for the Hour-Glass was white in colour, and that the purple and red-brown colour-scheme was applied to the costumes–thus conscientiously avoiding any potential ‘riot of colour’ (Craig, Living Threatre<\/a> 37). \u00a0Moreover, the same rationale seems to have informed the application of stage lighting to the rendered images produced as part of an interesting\u00a03D visualisation, built using the diagrams that appear in the original patent document which Craig obtained for his ‘screens’ concept,\u00a0by Christopher Baugh et al. (Patent No 1771)<\/a>. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Determining the position of the lights for our scene<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having decided on the colour of the lights, we felt that the image of Craig’s woodcarving was deemed to be a crucial source of visual information regarding the\u00a0position of the lights within our 3D model for The Hour-Glass. \u00a0However, an initial observation was that Craig’s woodcarving seems to constitute a horizontally flipped representation of the Yeats sketch, upon which our\u00a03D model is built. \u00a0Images of the sketch, from Yeats’s notebooks, and Craig’s woodcut appear in both Liam Miller’s book (Noble Theatre\u00a0167) and in a book by Richard Allen\u00a0Cave (Selected Plays 284). \u00a0Along-side the Yeats sketch, a further image appears in Cave’s book showing a\u00a0pencil drawing, also by Craig, of his scenic designs for The Hour-Glass (ibid.). \u00a0In each of these images, and in our 3D model, the character of the Wise Man is seated to the right of the stage [when looking at the stage from the direction of the audience], and the character of the Fool appears to the left; in a flood of light [from the back of the stage] that illuminates a curved passageway created by the screens. \u00a0In Craig’s woodcut the opposite is true, where the Fool appears on the right and the Wise Man to the left. \u00a0Notwithstanding that the image of the woodcut may have inadvertently, or necessarily, been printed in flipped fashion [by virtue of the medium in which the original carving was created, and that in which it is subsequently printed]–we felt that, as the greater volume of evidence suggests, the former configuration is more likely to have been the one that was implemented at the Abbey theatre. \u00a0In an attempt to thereby align our lighting configurations, as-much-as-possible, with Craig’s intended designs we used Adobe PhotoShop<\/a>\u00a0to create an appropriately horizontally-flipped version of the printed image of Craig’s woodcut. \u00a0This also helped us to better understand the direction, and position, of the stage lights.<\/p>\n

Informed by the [horizontally flipped] image of Craig’s woodcut, using the Kerkythea plug-in for SketchUp Make, we decided to back-light the entire left-side of the backstage area with a ‘point-light’ and we also considered using a spot-light to illuminate the Wise Man in the foreground. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lighting the rear-stage area<\/strong><\/p>\n

We positioned our point-lights for the backstage area, exported the model for use within the Kerkythea rendering engine environment, and opened the model in Kerkythea. \u00a0However, due to the complexity of the full 3D model [which includes the entire Abbey theatre stage], it proved difficult to quickly maneuver around our model within the Kerkythea rendering engine environment and the application seemed quite sluggish and unresponsive at times. \u00a0We opted instead to use a striped-down basic 3D model–which consists only of the stage floor and screens, without the surrounding Abbey theatre stage architecture. \u00a0This allowed us to determine suitable lighting settings and positions within the basic model, and to consider applying these lighting settings to the more complex model, for rendering, at a later stage. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We spent 1.5 hours positioning the back-light and changing the intensity of the light to match Craig’s woodcut image. \u00a0We thought it better to use a single spot-light instead of a point-light, which we felt would give a similar lighting profile to a lamp. \u00a0We figured that a lamp would perhaps best represent the extent of the technology that would have been available to Yeats in the Abbey theatre in 1911, when The Hour-Glass was staged there.<\/p>\n\n\t\t