Datasheet

12 Chapter 1: Texturing and Lighting a Product, Part 1

scene ﬁle, the grommets alone should be a semitransparent plastic. As such, set the cor-

responding material’s Transparency color swatch to a medium gray.

Lighting Techniques and Maya Light Types

Successful lighting in animation depends on a wealth of techniques developed for cinema-

tography and still photography. This necessitates an understanding of Maya light types

and the equivalent real-world lights they emulate.

Understanding Product Lighting

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, light boxes (light tents) are useful for evenly lighting

products that ﬁt within their structure. However, the Light_Box geometry included in the

headphones scene cannot provide illumination at this point (although it will contribute

to specular highlights and reﬂections). We will activate the illumination capability of the

Light_Box in Chapter 2 by using mental ray and Final Gathering. In the meantime, we

will use other real-world lighting techniques.

Because the goal of this project is to light the head-

phones aesthetically, we can copy lighting approaches

applied by glamour photography and music video

videography. One common technique of such media

requires the addition of a strong, diffuse key light or

lights placed beside or close to the camera. A single

light might take the form of a ﬂuorescent ring that

circles the camera. Alternatively, two equally intense

lights might be placed on either side of the camera

and softened by translucent “soft boxes” or diffusion

material (see Figure 1.13). Such lights may also be

bounced off reﬂective cards or purpose-built reﬂec-

tive umbrellas. By aligning the lights with the cam-

era, visible shadows are minimized. For a human,

this results in the reduction of noticeable wrinkles

and similar ﬂaws. For a product, this ensures that the

parts of the product are clearly seen; that is, no part is

made obscure by darkness. On a psychological level, a

brightly lit subject with few shadows often produces a

positive reaction. Conversely, a poorly lit subject with

deep, dark shadows is associated with gloomy or dis-

turbing subject matter such as ﬁlm noir or horror.

When a light is referred to as diffuse, its light

rays diverge and overlap in such a way as to produce

Figure 1.13

(Top) A model is lit by two lights placed on either side of the camera.

The left light carries a soft box. Bounced light from the white walls

works as a back light. (Bottom Left) The result of similar lighting on

a face. (Bottom Right) The result of similar lighting on a product (in

this case, a restaurant meal)

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