Tutorial: Practical Lighting for Production
The Gnomon Workshop has released Practical Lighting for Production, a guide to VFX and cinematics workflows recorded by former Blizzard lighting lead Graham Cunningham.
The intermediate-level workshop provides four hours of training in Maya, Arnold and Nuke.
Discover professional workflows for lighting a CG shot to match a movie reference
In the workshop, Cunningham sets out the complete process of lighting and compositing a shot to match a movie reference, using industry-standard software.
He begins by setting up a basic look development light rig in Maya, importing a 3D character, assigning materials and shading components, and creating a turntable setup.
Next, he creates a shot camera and set dresses the environment using kitbash assets.
Cunningham also discusses strategies for lighting a character, including how to use dome lights and area lights to provide key, fill and rim lighting, and how to use HDRI maps.
From there, he moves to rendering using Arnold, discussing render settings, depth of field, and how to create render passes.
Cunningham then assembles the render passes in Nuke, splits out the light AOVs, and sets out how to adjust light colors and intensities.
He also reveals how to add atmosphere, how to use cryptomattes to fine tune the results, how to add post effects, and how to apply a final color grade to match a chosen movie reference.
As well as the tutorial videos, viewers of the workshop can download one of Cunningham’s Maya files.
The workshop uses 3D Scan Store’s commercial Female Explorer Game Character, and KitBash3D’s Wreckage Kit, plus assets from KitBash3D’s Cargo.
About the artist
Graham Cunningham is a Senior Lighting, Compositing and Lookdev Artist, beginning his career as a generalist working in VFX for film and TV before moving to Blizzard Entertainment.
At Blizzard, he contributed to cinematics for Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal, Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Overwatch 2, many of them as a lead lighting artist.
Pricing and availability
Practical Lighting for 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 Practical Lighting for Production on The Gnomon Workshop’s website
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