Classes > Game Lighting and Color

LESSON 1 The Purpose of Lighting The many uses of light and color are explored in this introductory lesson. You'll learn how lighting can be applied and manipulated to define the shape and structure of objects in a game environment, and the techniques that help indicate time of day in outdoor scenes. Direction and intensity are introduced as methods for shaping the emotion of characters. In the exercise, you will build up your lighting resources and analyze the use of light in various 3D art pieces and photos.

LESSON 2 Components of a Light The range of lighting types you'll find in Maya and other 3D tools can be overwhelming. Lesson Two helps you make sense of ambient, directional, spot, and point lighting, as well as many of the controls that accompany each type. Working hands-on in Maya, you'll apply color, shadow, intensity and other attributes to modify the mood and depth of objects. After experimenting in the lesson, you'll choose and creatively apply lighting types in the exercise.

LESSON 3 The Power of Color Light and color go hand in hand in 3D video games, and color makes a powerful impact on the gameplay experience. This lesson begins with an overview of color as it applies to light and 3D environments. You'll learn how to select harmonious colors for your game scenes. The effects of warm and cool colors and other mood-defining color schemes are explored, and you'll apply them in the exercise, by lighting and coloring a model.

LESSON 4 Shaders and Light At this stage, you'll have a good feel for controlling the color and light of a scene, so Lesson Four will take it to the next level of realism with the introduction of shaders. Shaders define how an object interacts with the lighting, and are critical to a life-like game environment. You'll explore the many ways light interacts with materials (such as through reflection, gloss, and falloff) and try them in Maya. You'll create and manipulate shaders in the exercise, developing renderings of a variety of materials.

LESSON 5 Using Textures to Manipulate Shaders Shaders alone do a lot to give a realistic feel to various materials, and adding textures to the mix gives them even more impact. You'll learn to create interesting texture tiles in this lesson and apply them to your shaders to create glossy surfaces, wrinkly skin, transparent areas, and more. You'll also learn about the size and quality compromise that is often encountered in texture design. In the exercise, you will develop creative texturing and shading for a variety of materials.

LESSON 6 A Look Behind the Curtain The world of video game lighting is not without its limitations, and you'll learn in this lesson how the pros approach constraints like memory limits and older platforms. A variety of techniques will be explored so you can work around these hurdles, and you'll look at new technologies that will shape the future of game lighting. Your final project will take you to a dungeon… where you'll create two complete lighting set-ups using everything you've learned in the course.