Lighting and Shading for Film Production

A 6-week course focused on lighting, shading, and rendering in Arnold for Maya, and explores how the software has helped shape today’s modern entertainment industry.

OVERVIEW

INSTRUCTORS

GALLERY

PRICING

BENEFITS

TESTIMONIALS

COURSE OVERVIEW

Lights! Maya! ACTION!

This course focuses on lighting, shading, and rendering in Arnold for Maya for feature films. Students will set up a simple lighting scene and learn the differences between Direct vs Indirect Illumination, light typologies, and designations. They will learn high-level transmissive materials: refraction, caustics, sub-surface scattering and mixing materials. Students will take the skills they’ve learned and composite various elements together, reconstruct lighting and shading using Nuke, and cover good rendering strategies.

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Maya 2018, Arnold 5.3, Nuke 11 or up, Photoshop

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Deadlines each week

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Familiarity with computer graphic concepts and Maya, or an introduction to Maya class is necessary.

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Maya 2018, Arnold 5.3, Nuke 11 or up, Photoshop

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Deadlines each week

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Familiarity with computer graphic concepts and Maya, or an introduction to Maya class is necessary.

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Maya 2018, Arnold 5.3, Nuke 11 or up, Photoshop

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Deadlines each week

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Familiarity with computer graphic concepts and Maya, or an introduction to Maya class is necessary.

COURSE OVERVIEW

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

EXPAND ALL COLLAPSE ALL

The more you know, the better.

Week 1 | Introduction, General Lighting and Shading Tour

Week 2| Lighting

The quality of lights: big lights vs small lights | Light typologies | Light designations

Week 3 | Shading

Arnold for Maya material overview | Opaque materials: diffuse and reflections | Transmissive materials pt1: refractions and caustics | Transmissive materials pt2: sub-surface scattering | Mixing materials, shellac, varnishes and rust | Self illumination | Alterations: anisotropy, bump, normals and displacement

Week 4 | Rendering

Week 5 | Production: The Monster Project - Part 1

Week 6 | Production: The Monster Project - Part 2

Analyzing second try rendering issues and finding solutions | Rendering in layers, monster, building, helicopters and effects | Rendering passes, creating the necessary render elements for compositing | Art render elements: GI, lighting, per-light, reflections, speculars | Tech render elements: motion vectors, depth, UVpass, Occlusion, etc | Rendering per light, increasing flexibility during compositing | Stencil masks, mattes and crypto matte solutions, for detailing during compositing | Deep compositing method | Rendering strategies for final rendering: batch rendering or command lines | Final rendering quality settings | Slap compositing with Nuke, create an handover script for the compositing artist | Look up tables, OCIO, color management color workflow in production

Lighting and Shading for Film Production

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Instructor

Bringing out the best in talent

Frederic Durand

/Noroc Studio

LECTURES BY Frederic Durand

Frederic is a lead lighting artist and look developer of photo-real effects for movies and commercials. Working in films and commercials for the past 20 years in Los Angeles, London, and Paris, he has had the opportunity to work at Sony ImageWorks, Disney Features Studios, DreamWorks, Jim Henson’s Workshop, the Mill, and Moving Picture Company (MPC), among others. His approach is not only technical but also artistic, as he heavily emphasizes and integrates cinematography aspects into his work. In addition, he has strong a drawing, painting, and photography background, and continues to hone these crafts on a regular basis. He earned his Master of Arts from the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs (ENSAD) and studied at the Cooper Union in NYC. He is very experienced with RenderMan, Arnold, V-Ray, and Nuke, and has over two decades of teaching experience, most notably at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

INSTRUCTOR'S GALLERY:

REQUEST SYLLABUS

STUDENT GALLERY

Lighting and Shading for Film Production

Student Gallery

PRICING SCHEDULE

Even though our courses are the most affordable for the quality of education.

These FINANCE OPTIONS allow you to focus on your goals instead of the barriers that keep you from reaching them.

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”

Richard Pereira

Very thorough and informative lectures and critiques

”

Sandra van Gasteren

I really loved how Frederic started with the basic info about lights and shaders, and worked his way up to the advanced stuff. It was really clear that way.

”

Susanna Leu

I am glad I have taken Fredric’s course because he made the course interesting, which is really helpful for me to memorize all those difficult technical controls of the software. He also gave helpful artistic advice. Those improved my skills a lot.

COMPANIES THAT HIRE OUR STUDENTS