Week 5: Lighting - classic lighting setups

Been anxiously waiting for this week about lighting in Maya since it's what I plan to specialize in. This week started off with some lighting basics from the world of photography. Essentially we are trying to recreate natural and made-man lighting, so knowing a bit about photographers light shots seems to be key in getting good CG lighting.

The most basic setup is called a 3-point set up where you have a key light (main light source), fill light (to lessen the shadows) and a rim (or hair) light which helps fill out and separate the subject from the background. Most other setups are just variations of this. We were given the sheet (below) which has some classic portraits light setups (and funny descriptions since its from the '30s or something) and had to recreate in Maya with a 3d character. We had to pick 6 of them to recreate.

My results with Mr. baldy man below...

there is a whole lot to this week, so I'm going to break it down into separate posts. Easier to write and perhaps digest as well...not that I think anyone is actually reading all this stuff, lol.