Lighting in Maya

So, these are my first ever lighting set ups in Maya...

Alwin. H, Kuchler http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0473696/ known for Divergent (2014), Sunshine (2007) and Hanna (2011) was the lighting cameraman on my set design graduation film 'The Shaman'...

I have a funny memory of him on set, calling out to his assistant, in a very strong German accent

"Can I have an Inky-Dinky please and a quarter two see bee"

This translated was a small light with a light coloured blue transparency gel to fit over the bulb...lol

Lighting in Maya has been one of the best parts of creating a virtual world.

So much fun!

Here's some shots of He-Man with GuessWho in the background. 

I've basically chosen lights that give He-Man a blue daylight wash, plus some bounce light in red, to indicate sunshine hitting the GuessWho plastic.

I've included some screen grabs below to show the Maya interface and the creation and position of the lights...

Shot_05

Shot_09

Shot_18

I suggested we put some books on the window cill, so it looks as if the house is lived in. This set dressing should be 'invisible'...just putting a couple of touches of set dressing here and there (I learnt that on Pie in the Sky, when I was the on set art director) really helps to make the set look more convincing...

a bare window cill would stand out.

I'm very happy with the wallpaper, as it is a non-descript pattern and colour, and again makes the house look more convincing.

I chose a generic street scene as the background plate, in keeping with the modern style of house that we have created.

All of these shots have rendered out really well over the weekend.

As there are four of us lighting different shots, I suggested we put our rendered 25% images into and Premiere so we can get a quick look at the colour script...this sequence is fairly warm...

That way if any shots particularly stand out and look different from the rest, we have a heads up, before the compositing team get started.

I also suggested that where we have similar camera angles (such as the ones shown here) so that whoever did the lighting for that view, does the lighting for the other similar shots too; simply exporting the lights as a selection from the previous shot, and importing and tweaking where necessary..

Shot_28

Shot_29

Next step this week is compositing, where these rendered frames will be imported into Nuke, where we can add dust, focus pull, grain and of course....God Rays!!!! haha

Maya interface for Shot_31 which I am currently working on. 

Ringed in yellow are the red warm light, and blue daylight for the GuessWho board. I set the small daylight blue lamp (an Inky Dinky with a 1/4 2CB lol) to the side of the game and fairly low. This is so the daylight will skip and bounce through the flaps as they move.

I love how the light really picks up on the material finish (shiny plastic) of the game. Stathis made an excellent job of creating the model in Maya and Elena's drawn GuessWho faces are brilliant.

Lighting for He-Man

Overhead, set fairly high and low intensity. Blue and Gold. Each of his shoulders has it's own light. One blue, one red, set at a higher intensity.

Maya interface, showing the render fly out panel, and the option of just rendering a region (red rectangle, ringed in yellow). This gives the option of a very quick render, rather than waiting for the entire shot to load.

He-Man red overhead light, shown highlighted green (ringed in yellow) in the Perspective view, the 

attributes panel (ringed in yellow on the right) where I can adjust the intensity, colour, conical size, and the render panel which gives me a snap shot of how it will look.