1
Atmosphere Notebook
Train your eye for light, weather and silence in 3D images: a study path, a reference library, seven atmospheres with render recipes, a value study tool and a log for your master studies.
Path0%
Master studies0 of 12
References seen0 of 45
Step by step
From painting to render
Six tracks. The first three run in parallel all the time; the last three are where the eye becomes an image. Tick what you have done.
2
Photography and film
one film a week3
Theory
2 to 3 months4
Observe the real world
every week5
Bring it into 3D
every project6
Weekly master study
once a week · under 2 h0 of 12 studies in the log
Library
Who to look at, and what to observe
Each card says what to study in that work. Open the images, run one through the value study and mark it as seen. The library also has its own page.
Nothing matches these filters.
Caspar David Friedrich
PaintingWanderer above the Sea of Fog · The Monk by the Sea
A figure seen from behind, sublime scale, fog separating the planes.
Vilhelm Hammershøi
PaintingDust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams (1900) · Strandgade interiors
Silence, gray window light, an almost monochrome palette.
Andrew Wyeth
PaintingChristina’s World · Wind from the Sea
Earthy palette, melancholy, a high horizon and a lot of empty field.
Edward Hopper
PaintingNighthawks · Morning Sun
Light as narrative: one source, one figure, one wait.
J. M. W. Turner
PaintingRain, Steam and Speed
Atmosphere that dissolves form. Close values, one point of light.
Peder Balke
PaintingNorth Cape · lighthouses on the Norwegian coast
Nordic landscape in few values, almost a print.
Harald Sohlberg
PaintingWinter Night in the Mountains
Night blue, snow, the light that remains after the sun.
Isaac Levitan
PaintingAbove Eternal Peace
A lyrical, restrained landscape, a heavy sky, small architecture.
Alberto da Veiga Guignard
BrazilPaisagens imaginantes (imaginary landscapes of Minas Gerais)
Mountains floating in mist, tiny churches. The closest Brazilian painter to the Nordic atmosphere.
José Pancetti
BrazilMarinhas (seascapes) of Itanhaém and Abaeté
A low horizon, a lot of empty space, a restrained palette.
Oswaldo Goeldi
BrazilNight woodcuts
One streetlight against the dark. A lesson in value and in solitude.
Almeida Júnior
BrazilSaudade (Longing) · Caipira picando fumo (Caipira Cutting Tobacco)
True Brazilian light: hard sun, dense shadow, a doorway lighting the interior.
Giovanni Battista Castagneto
BrazilMarinhas (seascapes) of the Rio de Janeiro coast
Sky and sea in few values, fast plein-air painting.
Antônio Parreiras
BrazilLandscapes of Rio de Janeiro state · Grupo Grimm
Plein-air painting, forest and humid atmosphere.
Eliseu Visconti
BrazilLandscapes of Teresópolis
Diffuse, impressionist light in a tropical mountain climate.
Alfredo Volpi
BrazilFachadas (Façades) · Bandeirinhas (Little Flags)
A palette education: lowered, earthy, restrained colors.
Gregory Crewdson
PhotographyBeneath the Roses
Film lighting in a suburban scene. Every lit window tells something.
Todd Hido
PhotographyHouse Hunting
Houses at night, fog on the glass, one light on.
Michael Kenna
PhotographyLong-exposure landscapes
Black and white, a lot of emptiness, single elements in the fog.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
PhotographySeascapes
The horizon in the middle, almost nothing. Pure value gradation.
Saul Leiter
PhotographyEarly Color
Wet glass, snow, color in small patches.
Sebastião Salgado
BrazilGênesis (Genesis) · Amazônia
Mist, scale and the small human in the landscape.
Cássio Vasconcellos
BrazilNoturnos São Paulo (São Paulo Nocturnes)
The city at night, grainy and melancholic.
Luiz Braga
BrazilNight photographs of the Amazon
The color of artificial light sources in the humid dark.
Marcel Gautherot
BrazilBrasília under construction
Modernist architecture with impeccable light and scale.
Cristiano Mascaro
BrazilSão Paulo in black and white
Urban architecture as a value study.
Leonardo Finotti
BrazilLatin American modernist architecture
How tropical light hits concrete and cobogó (breeze-block) walls.
Nelson Kon
BrazilBrazilian architectural photography
Dense shadow, strong sky, raw material.
Claudia Andujar
BrazilA Luta Yanomami (The Yanomami Struggle)
Light, blur and atmosphere as language.
Roger Deakins
FilmBlade Runner 2049 · 1917 · Skyfall
One motivated light source, silhouettes, fog in layers.
Emmanuel Lubezki
FilmThe Revenant · The Tree of Life
Natural light only, blue hour, backlight in the forest.
Sven Nykvist
FilmCries and Whispers · Persona
Soft Nordic window light, faces and silence.
Andrei Tarkovsky
FilmStalker · Mirror
Water, wind, rain inside the house. Time as atmosphere.
Lavoura Arcaica (To the Left of the Father)
BrazilCinematography: Walter Carvalho
Practically painting: chiaroscuro, dust in the light, dark interiors.
Abril Despedaçado (Behind the Sun)
BrazilCinematography: Walter Carvalho
The sertão in hard light and an earthy palette.
Vidas Secas (Barren Lives)
BrazilCinematography: Luiz Carlos Barreto
Light blown out on purpose. Heat becomes language.
Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus (Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures)
BrazilCinematography: Mauro Pinheiro Jr.
Bleached white, an atmosphere of heat.
A Febre (The Fever)
BrazilDirected by Maya Da-Rin
The urban Amazon, humidity and silence.
Color and Light
BooksJames Gurney
Atmospheric perspective, diffuse light, the color of shadows. The most important one.
Framed Ink
BooksMarcos Mateu-Mestre
Composition and value reading in few tones.
Light for Visual Artists
BooksRichard Yot
How light behaves, in practice.
MIR
ArchitectureVisualization studio, Bergen (mir.no)
The building as part of a moment.
Roberto Burle Marx
BrazilSítio Burle Marx · Aterro do Flamengo (Flamengo Park)
Vegetation as the protagonist of the image.
Paulo Mendes da Rocha
BrazilMuBE · Pinacoteca
Raw concrete that asks for rain, stains and time.
Lina Bo Bardi
BrazilCasa de Vidro (Glass House) · SESC Pompeia
A house in the forest, concrete and filtered light.
Starting phrase
Before modeling, write the moment
Draw a briefing of weather, time and story. Use it as the starting point of your next study and send it straight to the log.
Briefing · recipe: Nordic fog
Nordic fog, 5:40 a.m., before sunrise, July. Only one window is lit. 50 mm lens at eye level, the architecture small in a corner.
Recipes
Atmospheres to study
Nordic restraint translated to the light of Brazil. The numbers are starting points for Corona or V-Ray, not rules.
Nordic fog
NordicNo sun, a white-gray sky, planes disappearing in layers.
| HDRI | overcast, no visible sun |
|---|---|
| Sun | off |
| Fog | dense, high scattering, sky-colored |
| Temp. | 6500 to 7500 K |
| Post | lifted blacks, low contrast |
Look at: Peder Balke, Hammershøi, Michael Kenna
Full recipe →
Mormaço (hazy heat)
BrazilA high sun behind a veil of humidity. Soft shadows and a blue-green background that dissolves.
| HDRI | milky sky, diffuse sun |
|---|---|
| Sun | high, large size for soft shadows |
| Fog | light, only in the distance, blue-green |
| Temp. | 6000 K |
| Post | desaturate the greens |
Look at: Eliseu Visconti, Castagneto
Full recipe →
Summer storm at 5 p.m.
BrazilA heavy dark sky, wet ground that reflects, one last raking ray of sun.
| HDRI | storm, dense clouds |
|---|---|
| Sun | 5 to 10° elevation, from the side |
| Temp. | sun 3500 K against sky 8000 K |
| Material | floor with low roughness and puddles |
| Post | darken the sky, keep the ray of light |
Look at: Saul Leiter, Turner
Full recipe →
Serração (mountain mist)
BrazilBrazil’s own fog: the Atlantic Forest dissolving in planes, from Petrópolis to the Mantiqueira.
| HDRI | low overcast |
|---|---|
| Fog | height-based, denser in the valleys |
| Planes | 4 or 5, each lighter and cooler |
| Scatter | forest with variation in height and species |
| Post | Z-depth to reinforce the layers |
Look at: Guignard, Salgado (Gênesis)
Full recipe →
Reddish dust in the air, a low orange sun, warm atmospheric perspective.
| Sun | 8 to 15°, warm |
|---|---|
| Fog | light orange, medium density |
| Temp. | 3800 to 4500 K |
| Scatter | dry grass, twisted trunks, exposed soil |
| Post | a light warm haze over the shadows |
Look at: Abril Despedaçado, Vidas Secas
Full recipe →
Filtered light (cobogó)
BrazilCobogó, brise-soleil or tree canopy. The shadow pattern becomes the subject of the image.
| Sun | hard, no softness |
|---|---|
| Interior | dark, exposed for the light patches |
| Fog | a thin volume for the rays |
| Camera | looking toward the filtered sun |
| Post | don’t blow out the patches |
Look at: Lina Bo Bardi, Lavoura Arcaica
Full recipe →
Night with one light on
BrazilA deep blue sky, almost nothing visible, one warm source telling the story.
| HDRI | night or late blue hour, very low |
|---|---|
| Light | one warm source at 2700 K |
| Fog | light, just so the light gets a halo |
| Post | grain, never pure black |
| Rule | everything else in shadow |
Look at: Goeldi, Todd Hido, Cássio Vasconcellos
Full recipe →Tool
Value study
If the image does not work in gray, no texture will save it. Drop a render, a painting or a film frame and see its structure of light and dark. Read more about value studies.
Showing a sample scene. Drag an image here, paste it with Ctrl+V or choose a file.
Reading
Six questions before you deliver
Your image is analyzed in this browser and never uploaded.
Master studies
Study log
One study a week, under two hours, only boxes and light. Record the result, the reference and what the critique showed.
Want this atmosphere in your launch?
We render developments with light that tells a moment, from the first still to the film.
Get a quote