I'm a self-taught Maya user just beginning my first project that didn't come with a walkthrough
and I'm having a basic lighting problem that I hope someone can help me with. I've modeled a spaceship from an extruded/tweaked polygon, leaving a two cavities in the back for thrusters. I want to place a light (probably spot or point) inside each cavity to light up the thruster space as well as shine some light out the back. The problem is, my lights are shining THROUGH various parts of the ship. For example, if I place a point light in the middle of the left cavity, it shines bright enough to illuminate the right cavity, the interior of the spaceship, and even highlights parts of the wings.
I did a little test by placing a sphere above the spaceship, and that sphere is picking up that light even though it should be entirely in shadow. Let me illustrate with a very crude diagram.
|...sphere..........O
|................._______
|................/........__|
|....ship.....<......C*__...light in thruster cavity
|................\_______|
I cannot understand why that sphere would pick up lighting from a light separated by two faces and some polygon area.
My guesses are, something is wrong with my light, or something is wrong with the texture/material of my ship.
Reducing the light intensity does help the problem, but this doesn't seem like the correct solution as NO light should penetrate the ship's surface anyway.
The texture on my polygon I believe is entirely opaque, with no transparency or translucency.
So, what settings/changes should I do so that the light will only illuminate the cavity/cavity openeing and not penetrate through my model?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I would greatly appreciate any and all help.
-Brian
