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linkdevil
05-10-2012, 10:21 AM
Can any of you cg people recommend the best place for a beginner to start learning all the lighting techniques ...

Seems very hard to understand all the different lights as everything has so many variations that I could not get from start to finish a good lighting technique such as lighting a character.

Looking at http://stroggtank.cgsociety.org/gallery/698420/ looks very very very hard to achieve that kind of light realism.

I know everyone started somewhere but if you had to teach yourself when you started with the knowledge of now how would you proceed.
alienretro
05-11-2012, 05:34 AM
2 books:

Digital Light and Rendering - Jeremy Birn
Color and Light: A guide for the Realistic Painter - James Gurney

If you want something Maya-specific, look at the Escape Studio classes. Also there's a Gnomon class named Efficient Cinematic Lighting.

And of course, get some pictures, paintings or movie stills that have the lighting mood that you like and start to study them.

Last, but not least, study photography. It helps a lot.
linkdevil
05-11-2012, 07:58 AM
Thanks alienretro,

Will definitely check those out... the one from Gnomon looks exactly what I want to learn :)

Hopefully I will be able to get the books to read them.

Thanks again... If anyone has more resources I will appreciate it... as I want to watch and read everything that is useful about setting up lighting & the best practices of doing that.
kanooshka
05-13-2012, 01:58 PM
For Maya specific information there's also a good DVD that goes well with Jeremy Birn's book. Lighting and Rendering in Maya: Lights and Shadows

http://3drender.com/DVD1/index.htm



-Dan
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05-13-2012, 01:58 PM
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