Differences in Lighting

Lighting types: Maya and LightWave have the same primary light types, except for LightWave's Linear Light. LightWave's Distant Light type is called a Directional light in Maya. Maya also offers an Ambient light type, which is similar to a point light but can brighten all surfaces in the scene regardless of its location.

To get caustics or global illumination effects in Maya, you switch the renderer to Mental Ray in the Render Global Settings window. This advanced renderer offers a full suite of advanced rendering options.

Maya's raytraced and mapped shadows, controlled with the Attribute Editor, are similar to those in LightWave. As in LightWave's Properties panel, volumetrics and flares are assigned via the Attribute Editor when adjusting a light.