Lighting is used to add in a realistic aspect to your scene. Within Maya, you can create lights that will help to portray the texture of your models and the setting of the scene.
Lighting is usually arranged into 3 parts to find an even balance of light – it is called three point lighting.
Key light – the main source of light that illuminates the object
Secondary light (Fill) – this light highlights the details of the object
Back light – the back light will distinguish the object from the background.
In real life, the surface of the object facing towards the light source will appear to be illuminated and the parts facing away will appear dark.
In Maya, there are 6 different types of lights to choose from that you can access:
Ambient Light
Ambient light is the type of indirect light that bounces off from the object within your scene and it illuminates areas that are not even lit by other light sources. For instance, shadowed areas of a room would be lit by ambient light. Within Maya, the ambient light will add the same colour and intensity of the light to everything in the scene. It is useful for simulating a combination of direct and indirect lighting.
Directional
The directional light will set parallel rays of light that hits every object from the same angle, regardless of where it is placed. The angle of this light can be altered using the rotation tool. It is often used as secondary lighting as it isn’t very easy to aim. It is useful for simulating lighting from a distance – for instance, sunlight.
Point
A point light will stimulate rays of light that are shining from a small point in space in all directions; this would cause the light to be emitted uniformly across the scene, much like a light bulb without a shade.
Spot
Spotlights emit light from one point like a point light however, the light is limited to within a single beam or cone. It can aim its light at a specific target and is one of the more popular types of lighting. It is useful for simulating lights from things like flashlights or lighthouses.
Area
Area lights are 2D rectangular light sources that are used to simulate the rectangular reflection of light of windows on surfaces. These lights will take longer to render.
Volume
Volume lights are used to illuminate within a given space and the direction of light is manipulated to give different effects. For instance, outwards would create light that behaves like a point light.
To create a light source within your scene, go to Create > Lights and select your desired type.
If you press the box next to the camera, a dialogue box will open and showcase the different attributes of the light that you can change. The properties featured will change depending on the type of camera that you choose. Here is the dialogue box for the ambience light for example. The light should be set in the middle of the scene by default.
Attributes of Light
Intensity – this refers to the strength of the light from the source.
Fall-off/decay – this refers to how the light dissipates across an object.
Cone angle – this is the diameter of the cones light.
Penumbra angle – changing this will change how the brightness of a spot light beam decreases at the edges of the beam.
Drop-off – this refers to how the light diminishes as it radiates from the light source.
Colour – you can change the colour of the light to match the mood and nature of your scene.
To show what the lights look like on your model, go to the Lighting > Use All Lights or use the hotkey 7. If there are no lights in your scene, the shape will appear black. The hotkey 5 or the option Lighting > Use Default Lights will return it to normal.
Light Controls
Aim from/Aim at
Fall-off rate
Cone radius
Penumbra/Umbra control
Non-linear fall-off
All-in-one control
Shadow effects
Hard Shadows
Soft Shadows
Fall-out
Shading
Shading is a combination of basic material of an object and any textures that are applied to it. The Blinn, Lambert and Phong materials are the main types of materials that are used in conjunction with shaders to create the properties of a material.
Lambert – this material doesn’t have any specific properties and is the default material used for polygons within Maya.
Blinn – often used for simulating metals such as brass as it has soft specular highlights and reflection properties.
Phong – often used for glassy and glossy surfaces as it has hard specular highlights.
Jasmine Cooper 