Week 6 - (Light Rig Base)

For this week my goal was to actually produce an initial light rig. This rig would be able to simulate morning, midday, evening and night. From what I had known about light already in Maya and in real life I had originally seen this an average task for the time I had. The problem was that I had just assumed certain things could be done when I hadn't fully experimented with them at all. This being shadows.

I started by drawing out some schematic light diagrams for what I assumed may have been a good plan. It worked out in theory and was able to translate as expected. It wasn't till I tried experimenting with Physical sun and sky did things start to go sour.

PHYSICAL SUN AND SKY

The main reason I used this is that it had already useful attributes for environmental lighting. Through this I would adjust things accordingly as well as tweaking colours and adding extra lights. This would work fine in theory but when I tried it I hit a brick wall.

I have NO idea how to manipulate shadows.

Changing the time of day and the actual softness were the only ways I figured out how you could manipulate shadows. This was bad very bad. After days of attempts and playing with everything I still couldn't figure this out. It was important that I did as I was getting light bluey shadows that had physical sun and sky written all over it. Without the ability to control shadows properly I couldn't continue. I stopped the experiment and went with failure.

(sigh)

WHAT I LEANT AND WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

As far as my skill set is right now I feel that I unfortunately have to call a bust on physical sun and sky. It’s probably better too as being able to create my own light rig manually allows for more control and is still usable if I chose to switch to different renderers.

Directions I could take for future experiments may involve working with lights individually. I may also be directed to see the impact of how different shaders/mip nodes may influence. Could a shader have fixed my shadow problem?

For next week I may have to alter the learning contract to accommodate for the fact that I haven’t finished an actual rig. Combining weeks together (like seasonal and create light weeks) may bring me back to where I need.