Need lighting equipment suggestions for recording VR videos

[Level 2 VR]

Hello all! I have just started my journey to become a content creator for Level 2 VR to help get them on the map of VR gaming and have a good 16'x16' room as a good base to turn into a recording studio but the one thing that really makes or breaks the video quality which is lighting and that is something I don't currently have yet but am actively researching on what to buy and where to place. I heard having lighting up top in the middle like where most rooms have their ceiling fan isn't a good place because of the downward shadows it creates so I'm trying to figure out what lights I need, how many, and where to place them. Here is a picture of the room:





Yes the first picture of the room looks nice and bright after jacking up the brightness on the camera for pictures but unfortunately the same can't be done with videos and for videos looks more like the second picture. The placement of the lamps I think are good but of course actual studio lighting instead of those two little lamps and probably celing mounted and that is where I need your guys help! What lights should I buy? I know enough about lighting placement as to get a nice evenly spread out effect with no hotspots which is why I have my lamps in the corners but what could I replace the lamps with that are mountable on the ceiling of if the ceiling isn't a good place to mount, where should I mount recommended studio lighting?

This is an example of the types of videos I will be doing. That was the old studio and recorded with a Logitech Webcam...
https://youtu.be/gFdFtGRrgd8

[Level 2 VR]

So I have been doing more research and to get that bright yet soft and evenly lit room I want some very bright lights shining at diffusion umbrellas on at least 2 sides or corners of the room so I was thinking I could mount these things (links below) on the walls in the corners that the lamps are at. What do you guys think?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018JXD68C/ref=as_li_ss_tl?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=...2c7a814c42e976

https://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-Premium-AC-Socket-Umbrella/dp/B003672SQS/ref=as_li...0c767a112863be

https://www.amazon.com/PBL-Reflective-Umbrella-Softboxes-Lighting/dp/B0055E6TY2/ref=sr...usion+umbrella

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-100W-Equivalent-Daylight-5000K-PAR38-Dimmable-LED-F...5016/205213868

If not the equipment I found, what equipment should I get and if not the locations I mentioned then where should I mount the equipment?
I also forgot to mention that this is a really budget setup!

[Cornucopia]

I think you should do a pre-viz using a mock-up of your room in Blender, with the kind of lighting you envision. See if it turns out looking like you hope. If so, buy elements that match the specs, if not: back to the drawing board.

This will take some time & effort, but will prevent the buy it-not good-return it-buy something else cycle.

Of course, you could always do it via rule of thumb or mathematically, but pre-viz cuts right to the chase: you can see what it would look like.

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However, if you truly are under a tight budget, you should stick with your standard lamps & bumping up the gain, as in example 1 (yes, it CAN be done for video). Good professional lights aren't cheap.

Scott

[awgie]

If your video camera does not allow you to do a manual white-balance, your lighting efforts will only go so far. Cameras with auto white-balance ASSume they know what you want to see, but they are not always right in their assumptions.

That being said, unless you actually want shadows, you need lighting from every angle to get rid of them.

You need wash lights (such as an LED light bar on the floor against the wall) behind your subject and also directed toward your subject from the sides, and front lighting from above and from below. Then just adjust the levels of each light to allow for shadows that you want to see. For natural lighting, you want a colour temperature around 3200-3500K. Anything higher than that looks artificial, and anything lower looks too yellow.

If you get LED stage lights with built-in DMX capability, or a separate DMX dimmer pack to control incandescents or dimmable LED bulbs, you can get a USB->DMX controller and run all the lights right from your laptop. Get LED lights that are RGBW capable, and you can play with the colour temperature (by separately adjusting the Red, Green, and Blue levels) to get the look you want. That's what I do for lighting for the music and drama programs for the school where I work.

It's better to have more light than you need, and be able to turn it down a notch, rather than having not quite enough and not be able to turn it up any higher. Increasing the gain gives you much worse quality than increasing the lighting.

If you're on a tight budget, look into stage lights from famousstages.com (who has merged with cheaplights.com) or monoprice.com (who has been dramatically increasing their selection of stage lighting over the past year or two). You can also get some pretty inexpensive stage lights from amazon, but their quality is anyone's guess. A lot of the lights I've found on amazon are made in China with extremely inferior workmanship and no quality control. I like ordering from amazon, but make sure you read the reviews before ordering any lights.

[Level 2 VR]

Thanks for answering my questions guys! Super helpful. I'll look into making a pre-viz mock-up with Blender and find some good stage lights. Glad to know I'm at least on the right track. I'll be updating with my progress here.

[Level 2 VR]

So I now know exactly where to mount my two bulbs but now I'm trying to decide on the lumen output. Would 2500 lumens each be too bright? And they are LEDs so is there a way to dim them compatible with the equipment I linked previously?

[awgie]

You really do need to be able to dim them, because different subjects require different amounts of light. If they are dimmable LED bulbs similar to the Philips one in your link, you could get an inline dimmer like this one. But that will only work if your power cord is a regular 18/2 lamp cord. If it's a grounded power cord, you'd need something different. If you're good at DIY, you could get a regular wall-mount dimmer and a receptacle and wire them into a box with a power cord to plug it into the wall. Then you could dim them with that switch. And if you plugged them both into the receptacle, you could dim them both simultaneously.