With the first assignment we're going to learn about the three point set-up, which is a basic way to light an object or person in a scene.
The assignment will walk you through a basic three point lighting setup. The first part of the assignment is fairly straight forward, but you have a chance to use your creativity at the end. We will be using the Pawn file for this assignment as well as the Rendering menu set. Make sure you are rendering using mental ray.
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Open the Pawn file for this assignment
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Set Maya to Rendering Menu
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After you've opened up the file, there should be a pawn, a background and a render camera.
In order to see your lights in a scene, you render out an image. If you were to render out your current scene, it will show the pawn and background with default lighting, like the image below. We're going to start improving the scene by applying a simple lighting scheme called three point lighting.
Three point lighting involves: A key light, a fill light, and a rim light.
This is the overall setup we'll be doing with the lights, camera, and pawn.
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First we're going to make a Key light.
Key light - Is the subject's main source of illumination and defines the most visible shadow. The key light represents the main dominant light source such as the sun, a window, or ceiling light. It's usually placed 45 degrees on either side of the camera (placed above the subject and a bit to the left or right), but can be placed anywhere. The key light will help determine the overall look, and other lights will support the key light.
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Go to Panels → Perspective and select "persp" to go into perspective view. First we're going to create a new spotlight by going to Create → Lights → Spotlight.
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Place spotlight in position (x, y, z) = (13, 27, 21). Click on the t key for the light's manipulator tool, to show the light's "target". Place the target inside of the pawn and in the attribute editor, change the Intensity of the light to 1.5 and the color (H, S, V) to (60, 0.134, 1). H= Hue (The color of the light) S=Saturation (How pure the color is) V=Value (How bright/dark the color is)
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So now we're going to name the spotlight to something that will help us remember what it belongs to, such as "pawn_key" or "pawn_keylight". Go to the Outliner and rename the key light to "pawn_key".
NOTE: Always name your lights in the Outliner
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The area of illumination of the key light is a bit too harshly delineated, which unless you are creating a stage light, is rather unusual. Set the Cone Angle to 20, the Penumbra Angle to 25, and the Dropoff to 0.25. This will give a nice, soft edge to the Spotlight.
Cone Angle: The size of the light cone angle. The higher the number, larger the cone angle size.
Penumbra: The softness and hardness of the light fall. It is part of the shadow where light makes it past whatever is casting the shadow. Higher the Penumbra angle, the softer the edge will be for the spotlight.
Dropoff: The rate of which light degrades as it moves through space.
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We're now going to soften the shadow up a bit. Select the key light and open the Attribute Editor. Under Shadows scroll down to Raytrace Shadow Attributes. Check Use Ray Trace Shadows and change the Light Radius to 2, Shadow Rays to 50, and Ray Depth Limit to 1.
Raytrace Shadows: Creates shadows by taking into account the distance from the light and the size of the light. When a large light gets closer to an object, the shadow becomes softer.
Light Radius: The light radius affects the softness of the shadow. Higher the number for the light radius, the softer the shadow will be. Will be grainy if you don’t increase shadow rays.
Shadow Rays: Increasing the shadow rays increase the quality of shadow, but will slow down render time.
Ray Depth Limit: Sets the ray depth limit.
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Next we're going to make a fill light.
Fill light - The fill light is used to fill in shadows from the key light. With only a key light, the scene would have deep shadows that reduce details in the objects of a scene. The fill light shouldn't create a second shadow; if it does then the intensity of the light needs to be turned down. Unlike the real word, you can also simply turn off shadows in maya when staging lights. Typically in the real world, fill light is created by dimming a light, moving a light further away from the object, using a scrim net to diffuse light, or reflectors to reflect light onto the object.
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Create a second spotlight and in the outliner, name it "pawn_fill".
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Place the fill light at (x, y, z) = (-19, 17, 20). Select the light and under Panels, click on Look Through Selected Camera to point the light at the pawn. Set the Intensity to 1., the Cone Angle to 20, the Penumbra Angle to 70, the Dropoff to 1.25, and the Color (H, S, V) to (240, 0.388, 0.721).
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Uncheck the Emit Specular box so that only the key light casts specular highlights on the front of the pawn.
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Lastly, we're going to create a rim light.
Rim light - The rim light provides definition to the silhouette of your subject and helps separate it from the background. Rim lights are typically positioned behind the subject and have a higher intensity than the key light. Most of the contribution of the rim comes from the specular component of the light. Therefore, the quality of your rim lights will depend o the specular attributes of the material applied to your subject.
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Create a spotlight for the rim light. Name the spotlight, "pawn_rim".
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Place the rim light at the position (x, y, z) = (-4, 14, -25) and point the light at the pawn. Set the Intensity to 1.8 and the Color (H, S, V) to (60, 0.366, 1).
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You'll notice that the rim casts a rather harsh cone of light on the ground. If this rim light was an important light in our light setup we might want to soften it, but in this case we will unlink the light from the ground completely.
Select the rim light and the background and go to Lighting/Shading and select Break Light Links.
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Once you're finished, render out a frame of the pawn.
Part 2
For the second part of this assignment you are to use lighting to create three different moods using the provided pawn and background. The lighting setups don't need to be complicated as long as they are expressive. Store each setup in the same Maya file and divide them up by grouping each set of lights. By toggling a group's visibility on or off you also enable or disable contained lights.
It's best to research and look up good reference images for moods you want to create.
Have fun!
