Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting- P2: I should stress that I am self-taught. In 1994, I sat down at a spare seat of Alias PowerAnimator and started hacking away. After several years and various trials by fire, 3D became a livelihood, a love, and an obsession. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to work with many talented artists at Buena Vista Visual Effects and Pacific Data Images. In 2000, I switched from PowerAnimator to Maya and have since logged tens of thousands of hours with the subject of this book | Figure A couple receives sunlight from above and as a bounced fill from the sidewalk. The lighting is a 2-point setup. 9 Figure Left Hals. The Laughing Cavalier. 1624. Oil on canvas. The Wallace Collection London. Right 2-point lighting re-creation in Maya. The scene is included on the CD as . UNDERSTANDING THE ART OF LIGHTING The intensity of the key light as compared to the fill key-to-fill ratio should vary with the subject and location. The optimum intensity of any light used in a scene depends on its position and the qualities of the materials involved. Nevertheless as a rough rule of thumb for an initial lighting pass you can set the intensity of a fill light to at least half that of the key. For the 3D reproduction illustrated in Figure a directional light serves as the key. The directional light s Intensity value is set to . An ambient light which serves as the fill is placed screen right with its Intensity value set to see Figure . 10 Figure Two-point lighting set up for the Hals painting re-creation CHAPTER 1 UNDERSTANDING LIGHTING COLOR AND COMPOSITION The 2-point lighting scheme is not limited to portraits. Many outdoor scenes exhibit two distinct sources of light. For example in Figure a watercolor street scene portrays a strong key light in the form of the sun. An even fill along the backs of the house and other structures represents the bounced sunlight which serves as the second light source. Figure Harry Leith-Ross 1886-1973 . Untitled. . Watercolor on paper. Whereabouts unknown. Using 3-Point Lighting Perhaps the most commonly discussed and applied lighting technique is 3-point lighting. Descriptions can be found in numerous 3D film and video instructional materials. Although 3-point lighting is a reliable way to light many scenes it has inherent drawbacks. In the standard 3-point lighting scheme a strong key is placed to one side of a subject approximately 15 to 45 degrees off the camera
