I haven't read that book. And those tuts are pretty good, he goes into talking about the "why" of linear lighting, which is quite crucial to realistic lighting.

I should have the book within a couple of weeks or so.

I think my lighting tends to go more to the cartoony/dramatic side of things, as opposed to the realism, but Im still interested to learn about that gamma stuff and linear lighting. Hoping I can pick up some tips on other mr nodes that I have never really used until now. Used the sampler info node for the first ever time today :)

Done some good stuff this week on the course, been looking at different materials, improving specularity, glass shading, and some different techniques and cheats for all things related. Looked at the Bokeh effect also, and had a quick go at the parti-volume shader, damn that things tempermental!

Not all covered in this pic, but this is one of the scenes we've been given to test out some of this stuff on.

Looking nice Ben.

Whats the course that you are on?

Hi Steve. Thankyou. I'm not quite finished with it yet, am planning some more work today, but, yeah, am pleased with it so far.

The course I am doing is the 8 week CG Society workshop 'Lighting and Rendering in Maya', with Jeremy Birn.

Oooo nice! But whats the big glass ball about? You just like the refractions don't you lol :p Only crit is the glass shader, it has no fresnel reflections.

Ha ha. Yyyeeep! Ha ha.

I might still do something with it, it was a material test really.might transfer the shader onto the other glass objects.

The fresnel effect is working on that, no? (The irrational floating ball)

Hi Ben
Looking good...............dave

I knew it! lol

Its difficult to tell on the sphere but the bottle to the right (most obvious) doesn't appear to have it.