How do I create realistic outdoor lighting?
 

Hi guys, i'm new to Maya and was wondering how to create realistic (or near enough) outdoor lighting, I wasnt sure which lights to use. I'm looking to light a small scene with one character, any help would be cool, thanks.......Jim :headbang:

Have you tried using Mental ray with final gather switched on? That should do it for ya!

Ok, so you have to take into thought what kind of mental ray lights you need.

First thing- sunlight.
A very strong spot light converted to a mental ray area light (but make sure the cone angle is large) with a high sampling factor (which you find under the mental ray tab in the spot light attributes). As for shadows, use raytraced shadows and just mess around with the values. also, the color needs to be a bit yellowish

Second- ambient light.
You need a bunch of little lights that make light from all around to fake this effect. How about a dome of spotlights, each with an intensity of 0.3, with ray traced shadows, and a lot of trace depth limit.

that should be enough for a nice render of an outdoor object

Try making some of your ambient lights light blue to mimic the light coming from the sky. (Or if you're using FG, make the camera environment color a light blue also). In conjumction with the light-yellow sun light it gives some nice outdoors contrast.

Thanks
 

Thanks alot you guys, heaps of help there. I might have to try each technique. Matt when you say to use a dome of lots of little little lights, I was wondering what sort of lights they would be and would they be kind of spread evenly in the scene?, thanks again for all your help guys..........Jim :bow:

yeah, lots of little spot lights spread in an even dome shape around the model

why wounldnt you try GI?

How do u set up GI?
 

I'm not sure how to set up GI Mc-fleury, but wouldnt mind giving it a go if you know how to, thanks.........Jim

i dont think i will be able to explain it very well because english is not my main language.but there is surely some good tut on the net about GI.

Thanks
 

Ok well thanks anyway Mc, I'll have a look and give it a go, thanks......Jim