Differences in Lighting

Lighting types Maya includes the same primary light types and shadow modes as max. One added light type that's unique to Maya (although with max 5, area lights are possible) is called Area Light, a light source that enables you to use a rectangle- or square-shaped light source and cast soft light with penumbral shadows. This light type is invaluable for indoor scenes or any place you want soft lighting. Also, Maya's Ambient lights are nothing like the Ambient control in max's Environment dialog box. Maya's Ambient lights are like point lights that include an All Surfaces Lit variable. You can also cast shadows from Ambient lights. Max 5 also adds light reflection options called light tracer and radiosity. Maya contains no similar function.

Creating lights Lights are created just like objects, at a fixed size (1) and place (the origin) when you choose Create Lights Light Type on the menu. You then position the light icon in your scene. You can scale the icons up and down without changing the rendered effect, except for the Area lights. An Area light's size is set by the icon itself, so you can use the Scale tool to stretch and size the Area light's rectangular panel. The Area light's shape affects how much light it emits.

Creating shadows Shadow modes in Maya and max are exactly the same ”mapped or raytraced shadows. As in max, mapped shadows are generally faster to calculate and appear softer. Raytraced shadows are usually hard-edged, more appropriate with intense point lights or sunlight. In Maya, you can set a radius for a raytraced shadow light to soften the edge, but that causes a severe hit on rendering speed. A unique feature in Maya for mapped shadows ( Depth Map Shadows , in Maya's terminology) is the ability to reuse shadow maps (Dmaps; see Figure A.19), which makes rendering faster after you've rendered the shadow maps once. It even lets you edit the shadow map in an image editor. In max, shadow maps are always created on-the-fly and discarded after rendering for every frame.

Figure A.19. Reusing Dmaps in the Attribute Editor.

Light include/exclude Maya uses a special window for light linking , as it's called in Maya. To open it, choose Window Relationship Editor Light Linking on the menu. There are two ways to view these light-object relationships: object-centric or light-centric. Grouping and assignment aids are included in the Light Sets section.

Light falloff Maya offers a new light type in version 4.5 that has similar functionality to the far falloff option in 3ds max. The new light type is called volume light . It does not necessarily create volumetrics (fog effects), as you would expect. Rather, it has a visual cue as to the volume that will be illuminated by the light. This light type has traditional features, such as various shapes other than spherical: box, cylinder, and cone. Also, light color from emitter to volume edge can be controlled with a ramp.