What is the Maya secret for Lightning?

[mister3d]

If you could show some renders, it would be easier to tell.

[mr Bob]

Occlusion is not helping at all because if I try to add any occlusion map to my model, the entire object or scene gets too dark in the wrong places... So I have to make blend with photoshop at 90% transparent so only a tiny bit of occlusion detail is shown... And 10% is pretty much nothing... worthless.

render a colour pass , render an occlusion pass , then multiply the occlusion pass with the colour. Post up your renders !

B

[jeremybirn]

My clay renders don't look like people's clay render... Even thou my friends swear they are only using lamberts and normal lights... My occlusion don't look like peoples occlusion even thou friends say they use the maya presets.... And my lightning never looks like its being lighten by a real sun light, even thou they swear they just added a tiny little bit of yellow on a simple spot light...

I know how to render with photons, but lets be realistic here, it is only useful for sphere tests because as soon as I try to lighten a full scene with 20 to 40 objects, the photons will take 10 to 40 hours to render... lol...

The easy answer is to say "practice." But, you have to choose what to practice. My advice is that your friends might be telling the truth: people really do get good results out of basic lighting and shadows, without bogging down their machines with GI and all the other fancier functions. (Even if you are rendering with GI on some projects, that only helps with the bounce lights, and getting the basic direct illumination and shadows working remains essential no matter what other modes you'll turn on.)

If I could plug a few things here: For Maya questions, especially if you can ask something specific and post some images, the Maya Rendering (http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=87) forum is your best bet. To get more practice lighting in different situations, and get feedback on your scenes as you work, please join the Lighting Challenges (http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=185). There's a really cool one in progress now, and lots of older challenge scenes you can still download from my website. I also have a new training DVD (http://www.3drender.com/DVD1/index.htm) on lights and shadows in Maya, that at least some people have found very helpful in terms of seeing how to actually light scenes using lights.

-jeremy

[sundialsvc4]

I used to help out with a lot of photo workshops ... guided tours where well-to-do folks who could afford to take those tours (and cheap-gophers like me who were willing to trade some "sweat equity" ;) ) got a chance to learn something about photography. In a way, my situation was better than theirs because I got to go on the same workshop, or to work with the same pro photographer, more than one time.

Anyway... pros get really good at saying something that just takes time to sink in. Like this little tiny jewel: "Look at the light."

"Look at ... the light."

"Look at the ... light." (Not the scene: the light.)

Now, obviously, in the context of a real-world photo workshop, the photographer had no way to (as we can so-effortlessly do) change the light that was actually out there. (So far as I know, there were never any angels or deities on our workshops.) What he was trying to teach the students to do is to "observe, and to observe critically, 'just the light.' "

Our eyes, in the real world, are amazing. We can (so they say...) perceive detail across twenty-two f-stops, while a film camera (using print film) can capture no more than five. Video hardware can be even more limiting. So that means, not only that there are a lot of real-world scenes that we cannot photograph at all without assistance, but that there will be a h-u-g-e difference between "what is in front of our eyes right now" and "what will be in front of our eyes when we gaze upon our finished picture." Since we were using real-film at that time, there could be no "preview."

When you are setting-up a CG image, yes, you are setting-up a totally artificial scene. Yes, you can control every single thing about it in the world of the computer. But ... think about it ... where does 'your world' (of CG) and 'my world' (of that photo-workshop) exactly coincide? Uh huh... output.

"Color print," "color slide," "CG image to video," "CG image to ink-jet priner," "CG image to film stock" ... all 'output.' A physical device is going to take our "world of the computer" and turn it into a tangible image. Our eyes are going to regard .. what? ... that "world of the computer" image? No. Our eyes are going to regard the product created by that physical device.

So... here's where we circle back to "look at the light." Take one of your images (which, your eyes are subliminally telling you, "looks wrong") and one of their images ("looks right") and try your damndest :) to quantify the differences between them. For instance, crank up Photoshop and look at a "Histogram." Try to translate what your mind is "subliminally" telling you, into something you can articulate.

Go down to the paper :surprised library and read Ansel Adams' various books, or a simple text on the "Zone System." Find out more about what-the-heck I meant by "f-stops," and why it is so important.

[jeremybirn]

One more thing, just to help with google searches for lighting related topics: the correct spelling is "lighting." In listing keywords for my website, I always include mis-spellings like "lightning" and "digital composting" because I know people search for them, but not everyone does that.

-jeremy

[torbjorn]

Offtopic, sorry for stealing thread, but funny anecdot:

Jeremy, I bought your 1st book on lighting back in 2001 at Siggraph in L.A, and I even got it signed by you. However, when I was back in Sweden working, a cleaninglady must have just thrown it away from where it was at the office (this was maybe, 2002 sometime), it's our only suggestion to this abduction of your book :) Sorry about it, I might have to buy a new one. Just a little flashback I got from reading this thread ;)

PS: Met Danielle Feinberg (DoP Wall-E) in Copenhagen last weekend, that was cool beans ;)

/ Tobey

----
www.elitevfx.com (http://www.elitevfx.com)

[InfernalDarkness]

I know how to render with photons, but lets be realistic here, it is only useful for sphere tests because as soon as I try to lighten a full scene with 20 to 40 objects, the photons will take 10 to 40 hours to render... lol...

Perhaps you're just going about the GI improperly. You'll not achieve a "professional" level of photorealism easily without using mental ray photons. Not with FG by itself. Especially with the mia_material.

A lot of us use photons every day, and I'm rendering 10 or so print-size images per day with them, if not more. My hardware isn't very new or powerful at all.

Perhaps share a scene with us, and we can help you tune it more easily?

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