Lighting &

Rendering 1:
Arnold Part 1
• The more samples the more refined the shape will be.
• Based upon the light rays, by increasing those you can better refine the shape at hand.
Same applies to colour, the more samples the letter the tonal range.
 AA Anti-aliasing

Light penetrating a surface.

Atmosphere and fog

In Arnold we have the ability to control the samples in different places so that we can get a
cleaner, refined image.
• Note: too high a sample the longer the render time, so be careful with how high you put the
samples in order to get a clean image
• Note 2: you can also cancel out channels that aren't being used in the scene to lower render
time.
• Can also affect samples on light systems, sample in the light help smooth out the shadows in
the scene.
• A value of 1 is the default setting a value of 0 would turn off the light, anything above 1 will
help sub-divide and smooth out the shadows
Pt1 - Sampling & Noise Reduction

Reducing the noise

within the scene
(this mainly around
the legs, arm and
create shadows).
Altered the lights sampling rate from 1 to 3; allowing for it to clean
up the noise within the scene. This was repeated on the second
area light as well.
Then opened the render settings and went the
Arnold render tab to then further clean up the
scene. So here I zeroed out the volume indirect and
SSS to quicken the render time as well as lower the
transmission and then increase the camera (AA)
and diffuse to remove and noise left behind. Here I
also locked the sampling pattern so that if this was
an animated scene the sample rate and level of
noise would stay the same and not change.
Final Render.
 Pt2 - Ray Depth: Before.

Allowing the light to pass through objects using ray depth.

• Open the render
settings and go down
to ray depth tab.
• In here there are
similar settings to the
sampling menu with
the exception of Total
(the total of the all the
values changed
below), volume and
transparency depth.
• With this scene
however I would be
looking at the
transmission
(transparency) and the
total.
 So I upped the transmission to 12 and the
total to 14. the reason for upping the
transmission to 12 is because the light if
having to travel through the glass and the
liquid in the shot twice over (glass – outer
(1) and inner (2) – the liquid (3and 4)- an
then repeat on the second glass which
brings it to 8). So in order to see the
second glasses colour through the first
glass the transmission has to be upped to
12 as there is and extra two layers that the
light has to travel through.

Final Render.
 Pt3 - Maya Lights: Point Light.
Maya lights in the create drop down
menu.
• Ambient and volume lights don’t
work in the Arnold render only
in the Maya render.

Arnold lights in the Arnold drop

down menu.

Point light - light from a point in space; similar to a light bulb, so the light is growing from the
position in space. Is important to know as its going to change the amount of light in the scene to
then be able to create a well lit scene.
Altering the exposure in the Arnold lights setting.
 Shadow.

Softening the shadow using the radius.

 Upped Light Samples To 3

Final Render.
Went into the render settings and further refined any noise within the render view.
 Maya Lights: Directional Light.

Altered the exposure from 0 to 2, to get even light coverage.

Final Render.

Upped the samples and angle

of the light to help with colour
and shadow drop off, here I
also changed the shadow
density so the shadow didn’t
appear so dark and seemed
more natural..
Maya Lights: Area Light.

Moving forward I then

looked at the area light,
and getting the
exposure level bright
enough to light the
character.
Upped the samples for better colour/
tonal depth in the light drop off.

Final Render.
 Maya Lights: Spotlight.

Framing Spotlight on character

(green circle).

Then created a spotlight and used the look through

selected function in the panels drop down menu.
to then place the light and frame the character.
Setting the spotlight exposure.
Then upped the sampling and radius for cleaner tones and then used the penumbra angle and
drop-off to soften the spotlights edges to imply distance.

Final Render.
 Arnold Lights: Area Light.

The Arnold light work similarly to the Maya lights, but tend to work better when it comes to the
render. So here I played around with the exposures and different settings In the lights attributes.
I then upped the samples and then looked at altering the soft edge and the spread; which in turn lowered
the light coverage and the edge drop-off to focus purely on the character giving a spotlight effect.

Final Render.