Maya Light Types

In Maya, there are several light types: ambient, directional, point, spot, and area light. Before going further, the following renders will show their differences and how they function.

Ambient Light
Ambient light is like a light that strikes an object from every direction. The ambient shade attribute controls how the light strike the surface of an object, in this case, the ambient shade is 0.8. Raytraced shadows are supported only. Ambient light flatten the look of the final image, thus it is not ideal while producing photo-realistic results.

Directional Light
Directional light is a light that is emanating from an infinitely great distance, resulting in parallel rays, like the sun, and does not decay. It is useful for lighting vast areas in a scene, and is really suitable to recreate sunlight and moonlight.

Spot Light
The most useful of all light as it illuminates a cone-shaped volume with the source at the tip, and having 2 attributes that control how the edge of the light tapers off.

Point Light
Point light emits omnidirectional light from a single point in space. It is useful for simulating their sources such as candles and incandescent light bulbs.

Area Light
When use effectively, area light can simulate light from fluorescent tubes and panels, or bounce cards.

Volume Light
Volume light is one that is useful to light a specific area. (see maya help for better rendered pix).

Properties of Light

Looking at the photos of the real world is the best way to study the properties and behavior of light. Such understanding will give us a better control over how we light our scene and making it look more natural, and as realistic as possible. There are other properties that govern how "real" a scene can be. Apart from having good textures and modeling, lighting is something that could push a scene from good to great.

These are just some of the examples as good references. Plenty are out there. Start collecting now.

Lighting Design Essentials

Lighting design is the process of creating the look of a shot that you use as a guideline for other shots in a scene to achieve consistency. As a starting point, it is useful to utilize reference materials such as photographs to generate ideas. These show how light bounces, diffuses, and reacts in different situations. Movies are very good source of lighting ideas. Studying still images from films to see where light is coming from or what colors are being used can help you create a more interesting lighting environment for your scene.

Properties of Light
In the real world, light bounces, looks, reacts, and reflects differently and in many ways. The ability to distinguish between different qualities of light is a fundamental requirement of lighting artists in this industry.

In Maya. all light types share 2 common attributes: Color and Intensity.

The intensity attribute control the brightness of a light source. Negative value results in light subtraction, and can diminish light on specific surfaces or create shadow efx without the added render expense of calculating actual shadows.

Color Theory

Color theory can be applied to many aspects, one of them is lighting. Here's a good link to understand color theory:

http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html

In the arts of painting, graphic design, and photography, color theory is a body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual impact of specific color combinations. Although color theory principles first appear in the writings of Alberti (c.1435) and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (c.1490), a tradition of "colory theory" begins in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy around Isaac Newton's theory of color (Opticks, 1704) and the nature of so-called primary colors. From there it developed as an independent artistic tradition with only sporadic or superficial reference to colorimetry and vision science.^{[citation needed] - Wikipedia}

Basics of Lighting

As lighting designers, we need to understand the physical and psychological properties of light, and how these will cause an emotional response. Lighting is about creating a picture or frame that describes the mood of the story.

Properties of light: The Physiology of Light
Light is a wave. We response to only a small spectrum of wavelengths between the UV and Infra red. Within these wavelengths will give rise to visible light. Different wavelengths of the light will create different colors to our eyes. For example, red has a longer wavelength, whilst blue has a shorter wavelength.

The visible spectrum of light is show in the diagram below:

According to research, our eyes are more responsive to change of color for green, and the least response to blue. In Maya, the software render attribute window has also taken this response into account. When we look at the contrast threshold setting, a higher value is given to blue, so more variation is given to blue in order to create a pixel of color.

In light, color mixing is additive. As you can see, white light is produced by mixing the colors red, green and blue. In this diagram, RGB are considered primary colors, whilst, yellow, cyan and magenta, are considered secondary colors. Henceforth, white has the value of, 255, 255, 255 in Maya. In real world setting, the colors we see from objects are really the different wavelengths that are absorbed and reflected into our eyes. The objects do not have colors but their colors, in other words, are dependent on their surface properties reflecting and absorbing the light properties.

More information of light can be referenced from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

A very good resource can be found here. It is an article titled "Pixel Cinematography"that describes the lighting approach to telling a story. Here's the link:

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ses/teaching/inf290/calahan.pdf

In essence, it decribes how light can be used to direct the eyes of the viewer to see the focal point of a frame, create depth, to convey the time of the day, to enhance the mood of the picture, and the reveal a character's personalities.

The uses of light are more than 1001. A good way to learn to use lighting is to analyze movies with a keen sense of observation. Look out for subtle color changes and how these affect the mood, pace, intensity, and emotional aspect of the story. See how light can change the way you feel about the scene, and the characters. Collect photographs taken professionally and see how light is utilized to create sense of depth and focus.

As a start, watch an animation, eg. "Bugs Life" or "Mr Incredible" and see how lighting is used as a film device.

(Ref: Alias Maya Lighting Video)