Lighting & Rendering 1 - Maya Lights

This tutorial focuses on Looking at the Maya light set and using this with Arnold.  Ambient light and volume light don’t work in Arnold, and these are purely for Maya.

Maya Lights

• Area light – a card of light 
• Spot light – similar to a lamp
• Point light – a point in space
• Directional light – parallel rays mimicking the sun
  

Arnold Lights

• Area light – more functionality and more physically accurate compared to the Maya area light
• Sky dome light – a sphere that lights the whole scene (HDR Maps can be plugged in)
• Mesh light – a piece of geometry that can be turned into a light 
• Photometric light – a physically accurate lighting system
• Light portal – a filter to help the ‘sky dome light’ and ‘Physical Sky’. Cleans up rays as they enter a volume room
• Physical sky – mimics a sky and lighting at different times of day.

Point Light

Creates a sphere of light, similar to a bulb. Light pools from the source. Falloff and decay as light disperses.

Exposure was increased in order to let in more light. Similar to increasing the aperture on a camera.

Radius was also increases, this disperses shadows and helped to remove the crisp edges of the shadow behind the camera, created by the point light.

Samples was then increased, this helps to smooth out the graininess created by increasing the radius. Ideally, sampling should stay between 1 and 5.

Directional Light

Point in space is irrelevant, purely works with rotations.

No falloff as this is a wall of light

Maya Area Light

Relies upon its point in space (unlike directional light).

The light takes the shade of a card and spreads out from its source.

Create realistic lighting immediately, can also create studio lighting effects

Spot Light

Can be viewed-through similarly to a camera, which helps to position the light.

A spot light is typically placed furthest from an object.

To encapsulate this distance, exposure is increased a little more.

Arnold Area Light

A few custom channels not available in the Maya area light. Falloff is also more realistic, more physically accurate. Th shape of the light can be changed from a square to a circle of cylinder, depending on circumstances.