Build a Reusable Light Rig in Maya

on Jun 15th 2009 with 44 comments
Tutorial Details

In the visual world of CG, presentation is nearly as important to the final result as the artistic piece being presented. For this reason lighting tools and techniques will always be indispensable assets to your artistic toolset.

In this tutorial you will learn how to setup a basic lighting rig in Maya. Specifically, this tutorial covers Lighting, Cameras, Render Settings, and some basic touch-up techniques in Photoshop. Once you’ve completed this tutorial, you will have a light rig that you can use to quickly render out professional quality images of your model.

Final Image Preview

View Tutorial

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Don’t miss more CG tutorials and guides, published daily – subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.

 
Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a 23 year old 3D artist based in Seattle, WA. I have always had a passion for video games, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized that I could make video games as a career. I have immersed myself in 3D ever since. After graduation I was hired by Microsoft as a 3D environment artist and am still working there today. When I am not sitting behind a computer, I love to spend time camping, skiing, and biking around Redmond.  

Plus Premium
 
 
  • http://www.joestrong.co.uk Joe

    Nice tutorials, and Maya now. Good to have a variety of tools on this site and its tuts.

  • http://www.asn-dfarm.blogspot.com/ Shafeek Hamza

    thank you, i was waiting for the maya.

  • http://craigps.co.nr Craigsnedeker

    I don’t get what it is. All well I’m not a maya person.

    • http://craigps.co.nr Craigsnedeker

      NVM I read the intro XD

    • gaja

      it was good. i should learn still pls heip me in maya

  • http://www.bloodboy-digitalarts.com Tobias

    Thats´s a really great Tutorial .. I adapt it to CINEMA 4D
    And it works great !!!

  • w1sh

    Trouble getting people to write tuts? Every 4 days? C’mon… I’m starvin’ here. ;)

    Keep trying your hardest guys.

  • Dj

    Wow! Looks like screencasting for the CG type of tut makes it much, much more understandable.

  • http://www.mike-moran.com Mike Moran

    Great job! Fairly easy to follow even for beginners. This is the kind of stuff no one tells you about that can improve quality quickly. And love the post production tips too! Some post production tuts would be fantastic one CGTuts really gets up and going. Nice job again and thanks!

  • Imran

    Really Amazing I like the whole things including lightings

  • Ross

    Thanks for a Maya tutorial :D
    I will follow this later when i have time.

  • chris

    wow great tutorial on light source and camera setup

    thanks alot

  • http://arpafran.com arpafran

    It’s very fun i love maya!

  • http://bakaburra.blogspot.com Bakaburra

    Great tutorial! It would be fantastic having the same explanation for C4D users!
    Otherwise, I love this new site. well done.

    Greetings.

  • Menno

    nice tut! Would love to see more maya tutorials

  • http://ns-1.deviantart.com Mimo

    Thats what im talking about a video tut…Keep it up

  • BHO

    Really nice tut… Keep them coming.. !

  • http://www.mikelewek.com Mike

    It’s a good result..

    A suggestion: I realize it’s not realistic to know the settings when creating on the fly, but the author should have cut it together so that it looked like he knew what setting to use for everything. Then, instead of tweaking every setting in a already long tutorial, he could explain the differences between what happens when you put the setting higher and lower and move on to the next step more smoothly.

    • Daniel

      dude, stop complaning. It´s free stuff. I keep seeing people complain on the comments in pretty much all Cg tuts.. Why dont you sign up and do a tutorial instead of complain.

  • jdmaxwell

    Very nice tut! Render and lighting is a tricky art. This is gonna help tremendously Thanks!

  • Leviathan

    Very Nice Tut!!!
    Hope more like this are comin’
    Specially for maya
    Chau

  • Leo Shastri

    Nice Tutorial

  • mike

    why are my comments always rejected?

    • Daniel

      stop complaining and you might start seeing your comments here troll.

  • Ross

    I have followed the tutorial and for the next video tutorial i suggest you dont use shortcuts. It took me ages to find the button to get to the same tool or menu that you were using.

    Also next can you started to make modeling tutorials?

    • Ross

      Also next can you start** to make modeling tutorials? + Please :D

    • John

      I’m with this guy… You used a lot of shortcuts and it took me a lot of time to go find out how you did what you did, often having to dig into other tutorials online for that information. What could have been said in 2 seconds during the tutorial took me a good 5 minutes each time instead.

  • rajkamal sharma

    hi.. when i rednrer my file , i found some error in my final reviewe..pls solov it

  • http://www.greg.wagner.prv.pl Spiralboy

    much more easy to use is zdepth from maya as photoshop layer mask, disable mask and use lens blur filter, select “layer mask” as source, it’s easy to use and more accurate and independent from your blurring skills ;)

  • sagameou

    this is good job

  • erick

    i`ve been waiting for high quality maya tutorials like this one. is so nice to learn new techniques for this amazing software. thanks and keep up the good job

  • A

    not to offend anyone..but if the result, is the rendering showed on the post…
    i wouldn’t bother watching this tutorial..
    maybe the next one ;-)
    sorry

  • John doe

    It waould be nice if you could view this on a mobile device

  • Oliver

    Great tut, I really enjoyed it and could follow it as a complete novice.

    There were just a couple of things that weren’t quite right about your lights. The colour of light is normally based on temperature. Tungsten has a lower colour temp and is a red/orange, then as lights get more powerful they become more blue, this includes daylight [except when you are talking about sunset/rise but that is to do with the atmosphere]. Florescent lights are green in nature, but nowadays are either balanced to either tungsten [32k] or daylight [56k]. White light is just somewhere in the middle of tungsten and daylight.

    Also, the ‘rim light’ you kept on talking about is just called a ‘back light’; rim lighting is just a style of photography.

    Sorry to be so pedantic, but I thought this info might help you out.

  • Robin

    Useful tutorial…I will adapt it for 3ds Max though…

    Thanks a lot!

  • jukjakjenes

    LOL! i had fun reading the comments. nice tut though. haha

  • AzteKpr1de

    Great tutorial, thanks!

  • mhd

    wow,what a genius tech ,thanks alot man ..

  • mubassiransari

    imagine wow thats a very helpful my work so its very helpful tutorial

  • Tom

    Nice tutorial for begginers! Easy to follow and great step by step procedures! I like it!

  • Muhammad Rafiq

    it’s nice i am new in maya

  • manish

    pl add more maya tutorials..

  • Rajesh

    Please add more interior and exterior maya tutorial….

  • http://tpolor.net/ shapple

    increadible! so cool