Tutorial: Cinematic Lighting Shot Production
The Gnomon Workshop has released Cinematic Lighting Shot Production, a lighting masterclass recorded by former Blizzard Entertainment senior artist Graham Cunningham.
The advanced workshop provides over four hours of video training in Maya, Arnold, Katana and Nuke, building on the existing Introduction to Katana workshop.
A masterclass in real-world lighting workflows for game cinematics and animation
In the workshop, Cunningham sets out the entire process of lighting and compositing a shot suitable for a game cinematic or realistic animation.
He begins with setting up OCIO for the industry-standard ACEScg color space, before importing and preparing assets in Maya and Arnold.
Topics covered include how to create a layout and shot camera, manage .tx files and color spaces, convert materials to MaterialX, and export the assets in USD format.
Cunningham then switches to Katana, discussing how to update the shot template, create new macros, prepare interactive render filters, and set up AOVs for multi-channel EXR output.
The workshop also covers how to import USD assets into Katana, optimize the scene, go through the lighting setup process, and create and modify HDRI light textures in Nuke.
Cunningham then explores how to create the key render passes, managing visibility and sampling, to render image sequences to disk using Katana batch commands.
Finally, he moves back to Nuke, where he reveals how to assemble the render passes, split out light AOVs, and adjust light colors and intensities.
He also discusses how to add atmosphere using volume renders and world position data, how to add fog FX using stock footage on 3D cards, how to use Cryptomattes to fine-tune the results, and how to add glow, lens flare, film grain, and apply a final color grade.
The scene shown in the tutorial was created using commercial assets including Big Medium Small’s Tokyo Back Alleys kit and fog assets from ActionVFX.
About the artist
Graham Cunningham is a lighting, compositing and lookdev artist with over 27 years of experience.
He began his career in VFX for film and TV before moving to Blizzard Entertainment, where he contributed to projects including Diablo IV, World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 cinematics.
Pricing and availability
Cinematic Lighting Shot Production is available via a subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, which provides access to over 300 tutorials.
Subscriptions cost $57/month or $519/year. Free trials are available.
Read more about Cinematic Lighting Shot Production on The Gnomon Workshop’s website
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