What Goes Wrong
So what challenges are there in a job like this? What kinds of things can become hurdles that need to be dealt with, and how can those problems be minimized?
Lack of communication means wasted time and effort.
One of the most important things in this industry, as with many others, is communication. That means not only communication between lighting artists working on a project, but communication between departments. Without it, there's going to be a lot of wasted effort and time, as things need to be overhauled or done over because of confusion as to what was originally needed.
Example: You've lit an area in the game, and spent a lot of time, maybe even multiple days , getting the look you're after. Then someone announces that it's all wrong...time of day, or mood, or any number of things. Who's fault is it? It doesn't really matter. Could be the designer didn't follow the documentation for the level. Could be the environment artist didn't talk to the designer, etc.
What can be done about it:
The best thing you can do as a lighting artist is develop a flexible outlook on any given project you're involved in. I mentioned earlier that it would be great if everything else was "done" in the game, so you could just show up at the end and do the final lighting. That's not how it works though, and a whole lot of what you've lit is going to need to be re-lit, based on those changes. It's a part of the job. You'll be expected to re-light an area whenever something breaks or changes, so revisiting areas for additional work is common.
Day to Day Alterations to the Environment.
Since lighting is the main topic of this article, I should point out that I sometimes think the title "Lighting Artist" should more accurately be "Re-Lighting Artist" because you'll spend the majority of your time re-lighting areas where things have been moved around. This is unavoidable, as the environment artists will be making a lot of updates and changes as time goes by. Hopefully, it will happen less often as the project nears completion.
Also, the technology is always changing during the project. You know those new lighting tools you asked for? Well, they're done and checked in. Hurray! Only...in order to implement them, you're going to have to re-light everything. 8(
Wide Discrepancy in Monitor Calibration
We all know we're supposed to be calibrating our monitors, unfortunately this doesn't happen at a lot of companies. In the film world, it's considered essential, but in games, it's frequently "oh yeah. we should do that..." but nobody quite gets around to it. So people working on the game are looking at drastically different versions, with some monitors way too bright or too dark, or with horrible color casts. Pushback from management is usually "Well, the players that buy the game have all kinds of different monitors, so it will look different anyway", which is true, but as we are the ones authoring the master as it were, we should at least be seeing the same thing as we create it. Try to convince the managers that monitor calibration is important, it will help.
No honored art lock.
I mentioned the Art Lock earlier. At the better companies (the ones that plan things out), an art lock means that time is set aside at the end of the project to let the lighting artists go in and finish all final lighting, and nobody is allowed to change anything in the environment during this time. All art is locked. Only changes to things like pathing and collision can be altered.
If you don't have an art lock, everybody is tripping over everyone else up to the last minute, which spells disaster. (And broken lighting.)
Yeah, That Got Cut.
It happens to all of us. You know that shot you just worked on for a month and a half? The one that was one of your favorites? That got cut. <insert sad trombone sound>. Not much can be done about this. Even projects that have been planned out well have major changes made during the progression of said project. Drown your sorrows in beer or hot chocolate, your choice.
Crunch Mode
I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, constant crunch mode can be debilitating. You're the only one that can decide if you're willing to put up with not having a personal life for the sake of a paycheck. It has gotten so bad at some game studios that talented people have left the game industry completely, just so they can have a more normal home life. That's messed up. This is still something that goes on at a lot of companies. Some people don't seem to mind. Here's an article about why crunch mode backfires so often.
The Postmortem
Since so many things go wrong during a project, many companies have a postmortem at the end of the project to discuss what went wrong and what improvements can be made to workflow, schedules, and tools so that there's less pain the next time around. Hopefully you and your department will be asked to write up a postmortem of your own to contribute. If we don't learn from our mistakes, we're not going to get any better.
Like all jobs, there are patterns you'll come to recognize over the years, and with that information, you can hopefully help provide input as to how a company can improve workflows and communication as new projects arise.
