3D

 Brilliance:  The  Art  of  3D  Ligh5ng  in  Maya   A

seminar  by  Ronna  Lara-­‐Bes

Lighting and Emotions

Ligh5ng  help  tell  the  story.  In  the  movies  that  you  watch,  be  it  live  ac5on,  computer-­‐generated  or
effects-­‐driven,  the  mood  of  the  scene  is  sustained  by  the  placement  of  lights.  Color,  intensity,  contrast:
all  of  these  factors  play  into  the  ambience,  sending  a  visual  message  to  the  viewer.

In  3D  work,  many  ar5sts  focus  on  the  first  parts  of  the  content  crea5on  process.  When  it  comes  5me  to
render,  the  deadline  has  usually  arrived  or  the  excitement  of  finishing  the  project  takes  the  forefront,
leaving  the  ligh5ng  process  just  as  an  aLerthought.  This  is  one  of  those  glaring  mistakes  people  make.
No  maNer  how  well  you’ve  modelled  or  animated,  if  the  ligh5ng  is  mediocre,  then  your  effort  is  wasted.

Many  anima5on  could  have  been  saved  from  being  “blah”  had  it  just  been  lit  properly.  When  you  have  a
scene  to  render,  one  needs  to  first  determine  what  the  actual  message  that  scene  needs  to  convey.  Once
you  know  that,  then  you  can  plan  out  the  ligh5ng  you  need  to  do  using  Maya’s  array  of  illumina5on
tools.

Light Objects in Maya

A  simple  review  of  the  standard  light  objects:

  

Ambient  light Point  Light

Essen5ally  for  overall  brightening Emits  from  a  single  point  towards  all  direc5ons

Spot  Light Volume  Light

Emits  light  rays  in  a  cone  shape Similar  to  a  point  light,  but  is  contained  within  a  volume

of  space
Direc5onal  Light Area  Light

Casts  rays  parallel  with  each  other.   Emits  light  from  an  area  rather  than  a  single  point.

Light  loca5on  does  not  factor  in  illumina5on,   Shadows  become  soLer  when  they  are  father  from

but  orienta5on  does.  Works  best  with   the  object(s).

raytraced  shadows.
Photography Principles

PORTRAIT  LIGHTING

The  Basic  3-­‐point  Ligh5ng  Setup

Key  Light
Fill  Light
Back  Light

Image  source:  Damien  Franco

pixiq.com

Applied  in  a  3D  scene:

Key  Light Add  Fill

Add  Back  Light Backlight:  Emit  Diffuse  OFF

1.    Key  Light  –  Yellowish
Intensity  =  1.5
Depth  Map  =  2048,  Filter  4

2.    Fill  Light  –  Blue-­‐ish

Intensity  =  0.75
Depth  Map  =  512,  Filter  4

3.    Back  Light  –  Yellowish

Intensity  =  1.5
Depth  Map  2048,  Filter  4
Emit  Diffuse  =  Off

Model  source:  Learning  Maya  2009,The  Special  Effects  Handbook

PRODUCT  LIGHTING

Studio  setup
A  Sample  Maya  Setup:

1.    Green  =  Key  Light

2.    White    =  Purple  Specular

Intensity  =  2
Emit  Diffuse  =  Off

3.    Brown  =  Cyan  Specular

Intensity  =  2
Emit  Diffuse  =  Off

3D  model  source:  Ronna  Lara-­‐Bes

Using  white  background:

  

Same  ligh5ng  as  above  looks  good. With  ground  plane  and  added  overhead  light

for  shadow  cas5ng.

Render  Ambient  Occlusion  (AO)  pass Composite  result

Indirect Lighting

GLOBAL  ILLUMINATION
In  the  real  world,  light  bounces  off  infinitely.  Star5ng  with  the  light  source  (the  sun,  lamps,  etc.),  the  rays
will  strike  a  surface.  Depending  on  the  proper5es  of  said  surface,  some  of  the  light  will  be  absorbed  and
some  will  be  reflected  outwards  to  strike  another  surface,  but  in  diminished  value.  This  is  why  when  a
door  opens  to  let  in  light  in  a  totally  dark  room,  you  are  able  to  see  beyond  where  the  light  strikes.

In  3D,  when  a  light  strikes  a  part  of  a  scene,  only  those  hit  will  be  illuminated.  This  is  referred  to  as  direct
illumina5on.  Reflected  light  from  surfaces  is  called  indirect  ligh5ng.  Global  Illumina5on  (GI)  is  one  of  the
features  of  mental  ray  that  simulates  the  bouncing  of  light.  

To  use  GI,  you  need  to  create  a  light  that  will  shoot  photons  into  the  scene.  These  photons  and  their
intensi5es  in  3D  space  are  recorded  into  a  photon  map.  The  area  is  then  searched  for  surfaces  that
intersect  with  these  photons.  These  photons  can  then  bounce  off  to  hit  other  surfaces,  with  the  intensity
changed  depending  on  the  property  of  the  reflec5ng  surface.  The  surfaces  are  illuminated  based  on
these  intersec5ng  photons.

Lights  that  produce  good  photons  are  spot,  area  &  point  lights.  Direc5onal  lights  can  also  emit  photons
but  since  all  its  light  rays  are  parallel,  it  has  no  actual  “origin”  or  place,  for  the  photons  to  cast  from.
What  results  is  usually  a  burnt-­‐out  render.  But  direct  ligh5ng  can  be  independent  of  photon  cas5ng.  So  if
you  need  to  use  direc5onal  light,  you  can  work  around  this  by  using  an  area  light  with  zero  intensity  to
do  the  photons  emission  as  in  the  example  below.

Using  one  direc5onal  light Using  an  area  light  to  simulate  bounced  light
Part  of  the  GI  effect  is  reflectance  of  color  as  well. GI  with  Final  Gather  turned  on.

FINAL  GATHER

Final  Gather  (FG)  is  a  very  useful  mental  ray  feature  if  you  want  a  quick,  fast  and  easy  GI.  It’s  not
necessarily  accurate  but  if  your  purpose  is  only  to  have  that  “GI  look”,  then  using  FG  would  do  the  trick.
In  addi5on,  with  FG,  you  can  simulate  light  emimng  objects  by  turning  up  the  incandescence  value  of  the
shader  associated  with  your  objects.
IMAGE-­‐BASED  LIGHTING

Image-­‐based  ligh5ng  (IBL)  is  a  process  wherein  the  3D  geometry  is  lit  based  on  the  informa5on  stored  in
image  files.  This  result  in  extremely  accurate  ligh5ng  based  on  real-­‐world  environment,  making  the  3D
image  blend  seamlessly  with  the  background  image  it  is  being  composited  to.  With  image-­‐based  ligh5ng,
the  image  file  itself  cast  the  illumina5on,  nega5ng  the  need  to  create  light  and  it  also  takes  the
guesswork  out  of  assigning  light  values.  It  is  already  standard  prac5ce  for  Hollywood  effects  houses  to
send  a  team  to  the  loca5ons  of  scenes  being  shot  so  they  can  take  high-­‐resolu5on  images  of  the  en5re
set.  Those  images  are  then  processed  to  be  used  as  reflec5ons  and  illumina5on  for  the  CG  footage.

In  Maya,  you  can  use  both  LDR  (low-­‐dynamic  range)  and  HDR  images  as  IBL.  However,  HDR  are  best
suited  for  this  because  they  store  the  radiance  map  needed  to  portray  the  true  illumina5on  values  of
real-­‐world  environments.  You  can  use  either  probe  images  or  spherical  (360  degree  panorama)  images  in
image-­‐based  ligh5ng.

HDR  Probe  Image Rendered  result

HDR  Spherical  Image Rendered  result

HDR  Spherical  Image Rendered  result

Special Shaders

PHYSICAL  SUN  AND  SKY

mental  ray  has  several  shaders  for  light  effects  and  for  surfaces  that  behave  in  a  certain  way  towards
lights.  One  of  them  is  the  ambient  occlusion  shader  used  to  ground  the  black  shampoo  boNle  above.
There  is  a  network  of  shaders  for  the  camera  and  light  that  simulates  sunlight:  Physical  Sun  and  Sky.  It
requires  Final  Gather  enabled  for  it  to  render  properly.  When  you  ac5vate  Physical  Sun  and  Sky  from  the
Render  setup,  a  direc5onal  light  is  created  along  with  a  series  of  nodes  that  connect  to  it,  as  well  as  the
exis5ng  cameras  in  the  scene.  The  placement  of  the  direc5onal  light  has  no  bearing,  but  the  orienta5on
does.  The  Rotate  X,Y  &  Z  aNribute  control  the  placement  of  the  “sun”  with  respect  to  the  “sky”  in  the
scene.

sunDirec5on  =  75  degrees sunDirec5on  =  30  degrees

sunDirec5on  =  10  degrees
SUB-­‐SURFACE  SCATTERING

Image  source:  Isamu  Motoyoshi,  Ph.D.

Many  objects  such  as  food,  plants,  marble,  candles  and  skin  do  not  just  absorb  and  reflect  light.  When
the  light  is  absorbed,  it  bounces  just  beneath  the  surface  before  being  reflected  back  to  the
environment.  The  term  “glowing  skin”  is  a  vague  descrip5on  of  this  translucent  property.

The  Translucence  group  of  aNribute  present  in  many  standard  shader  is  a  simple  way  to  approximate
sub-­‐surface  scaNering.  This  is  useful  for  effects  such  as  shadows  being  cast  from  behind  a  thin  object,  or
for  objects  with  a  single  type  of  material  such  as  candle  wax.
Leaf=  Blinn  surface  with  Translucence  value  of  0.341
However,  to  achieve  something  complex  such  as  human  skin,  mental  ray  provides  with  several  sub-­‐
surface  scaNering  shaders:

miss_call_shader

miss_fast_shader

miss_fast_shader_x  

miss_fast_shader_x_passes

miss_fast_simple_maya  

miss_fast_skin_maya

miss_physical

miss_set_normal

miss_skin_specular

Giraffe  with  Blinn  Shader Giraffe  with  SSS  fast  skin  shader