Light setup for daylight scene

[mister-t]

Does anyone have some guidelines and rules as a starting point for setting up lights for a daylight outdoor scene in Maya? I would like to know how many lights & their colors/settings. Thanks a lot!

Tony quach

[minstrel]

Imagine you are lighting for outdoors in an indoor set. All of the general film or stage lighting principles hold true for CG as they do in real life. Key lights, kickers, and fills. Look in books, watch films. Find a reference for what you like and use that as a template to start from. Some good reference books would be Cinematography and Film Lighting, both by Kris Malkiewicz. Also good are several books in the Pro Lighting Series.

[earthtojens]

i usually start with a directional light as my main light. slightly yellow. then place small reflected lights (yellow and blue) where light would be bouncing off objects (white surfaces etc.) or to enhance shadows. also take into account that the sky casts a lot of blue light.

Jens Johnson
3d artist
humongous entertainment

[koemoe18]

Also.. look into regional Color temperature settings while keeping all the above replies in mind. Different locations around the world have different Color temps at different times for outdoor light. Higher the Color temp.. the more orange.. lower the more blue.

look here

http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/cct.html

terms http://www.xrite.com/support/Glossary.asp

Also.. I had a link to a sight that would convert RGB or HSV vaules to ColorTemp but I cannot find it! ARGH.. if you find something that does this let me know I'd love to find it again!

Old Quake players never die, they just go play other games for a while.