Adjust your monitor!	Basics of lighting theory	Qualities of light
Color lighting	Three-point lights	Types of lights and what they do
Using shadows	Shadows and light properties	Light Linking
Light Matching		Main

Qualities of Light

Softness

Softness of lights is hard to reproduce in CG. By default, CG lights emit hard-edged light sources. Soft light occurs naturally in real life.

• Hard lighting situations:
  1. Restricted light bulb
  2. Clear sunny day, high noon
  3. Outer space scenes
  4. Strong spot light
  5. “Villain light”
• Soft lighting situations:
  1. Cloudy daylight
  2. Reflected light (off a wall for example)
  3. Light passing through translucent material
  4. Inviting (comfortable or relaxing) environments
  5. “Beauty shots” of a figure
• Soft lighting can
  1. Avoid tight specular highlights.
  2. Help three-point lighting appear less hard-edged.
  3. Adjust the falloff of fading lights.

Intensity

Intensity is the brightness of the light, which is usually controlled through the RGB of the light.

Attenuation of light is controlled through the light’s intensity. Attenuation is how far the light will spread out and changes the exposure level as light travels away from the source. All of this is controlled by an attribute called decay-rate of each light within Maya.

Color

Lights are commonly mistaken to be thought of casting just white light. All lights have color whether it is just a tint of color or full-blown hues of colors.

Color, as we know from psychology, sets a mood. Using cool colored lights in a softly lit living room will not be as inviting as warm colored lights.

 

Throw

Throw is the pattern or shape cast lights create on illuminated surfaces.

A well place light can help break up boring surfaces by illuminating light and shadow patterns on the surface.

A commonly used lighting item in film to achieve outdoor lighting of a forest in an indoor studio is to create a tree branch gobo.

• Gobos are specially design sheets cut to form the shadow shape of the desired object.
• This can be accomplished in 3D as well. Create a texture map of the shadow shape and link it to your light’s intensity attribute.

Animation

Many lights are known to exist only if they move. Candle flames, theatre billboard lights and pulsing emergency vehicle lights to name a few.