So we have fun toys now like CamTrackAR to capture tracking data of the cameras movement but what about light? Is there any hardware or software to compute the real world lighting from a real world location/set and transfer that data to unreal? Or do we just eyeball it?
You can use an online API to track light stage in the real world depending on time. You will most likely need to transform the coordinates to the correct Transformation. I found this, but I am not sure if it is sufficient for your project: https://shadowmap.org/ & Find Your Location and Compute Sunlight Conditions
There might be something for blueprints on the marketplace, but you will likely have to connect the API using C++ which can be tricky if you have no programming experience.
I also suggest looking through the settings in the default sky that comes with Unreal Engine, I remember vaguely that there is some support for something like what you are asking. I can of course be wrong though.
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Amazing info!! I’m going to test that out along with rendering a 3d scan from the footage so for instance light shafts breaking through a forest canopy can be replicated into the unreal comp to get the most precise lighting to marry the real world footage with the Fx
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No joke, but look up tutorials on film lighting. I work as a film gaffer IRL (the lighting guy). Unreal is so much fun for me because for the first time as a gaffer I have 1) unlimited lights and 2) can move the sun and clouds.
Learning film gaffing gives you the skill set to eyeball a lot of details about light most people don’t notice, like color temperatures, ambience, atmosphere etc.
I’m much better at this than learning c++, haha