Maya® Studio Projects Texturing and Lighting

Project: Activating Image-Based Lighting

Thus far, you have lit the scene with standard spot lights and directional lights. You can add more complexity to lighting by activating an image-based lighting system through mental ray and Final Gathering. As was demonstrated in Chapter 2, “Texturing and Lighting a Product, Part 2,” Final Gathering incorporates bounced light and color bleed. In addition, Final Gathering is able to light with a bitmap if the bitmap is loaded into an image-based lighting (IBL) node.

Creating an IBL Node

To create an IBL node, follow these steps:

Figure 4.13 (Left) IBL shape node. (Right) Projection sphere created by node

1. Open the Render Settings window. Switch to the Indirect Lighting tab. In the Environment section, ...