Animation Demo Reels - To Light or Not to Light?

Chameleon by Dave Novis

A strong animation demo reel isn’t just about great animation — it’s also about great presentation.  

Many student reels rely on greyshade renders or raw playblasts, but taking the time to add simple lighting can make a huge difference to how your work is received. 

You don’t need to be a lighting artist to benefit from a basic setup.  A little polish goes a long way, and you can follow one of our super simple lighting tutorials to get a great result in just a few minutes. 

Render Motion Blur in Maya and Arnold

How to Render Motion Blur in Maya and Arnold:  This very simple and very short tutorial shows how to turn on Motion Blur in the Arnold Renderer in Autodesk Maya.  Why would we want to turn on motion blur? Because when we have very fast action, we almost always want motion blur; this simulates how our eyes actually see things in real life. 

How to Create a Render Sequence in Arnold

In this super simple tutorial we show how to export a Render Sequence in Arnold, in Autodesk Maya. First watch the tutorials on basic lighting setups, such as Lighting in Arnold with Physical Sky, or Lighting in Arnold with Sky Shader, and then watch this video to see how to render out a series of images that can be imported into Adobe Premiere or Blender - or any editing software - ready to export as a movie file.

Create a Starry Sky with Arnold Skydome

In this short video tutorial (just five minutes long) we demonstrate how to create a starry sky in Maya with just a few clicks, using the Arnold Skydome. Using an HDRI night sky texture map (Google one to get started), we can create a night sky effect with little or no effort, using the Arnold Renderer.  To see the step by step plan, follow the outline below. You can find the tutorial video at YouTube here.

Simple Lighting Setup in Arnold - Sky Shader

In this simple lighting tutorial, aimed at Autodesk Maya beginners, we explain how to achieve a basic lighting setup in Arnold using the Arnold Sky Shader. This is a simple lighting setup, only slightly more sophisticated than the Arnold Physical Sky tutorial - which is as simple as it is possible to achieve in Arnold, and gives good results for an outdoor scene with just a few clicks. 

Basic Lighting in Maya & Arnold - Physical Sky

 

In this simple tutorial, for Autodesk Maya beginners, we explain how to achieve a super basic lighting setup in Arnold using the settings in Physical Sky. This is as simple a setup as it is possible to achieve in Arnold, and gives good results for an outdoor scene with just a few clicks. For those who want to dig deeper into lighting and rendering, follow the link to our Vimeo Tutorial Channel, which has hundreds of video tutorials for our students.

"Lighting for Animators" is Back on 26 Jan 2023

Steve Lall teaching at Escape Studios

Animation tutor Steve Lall is back on Thursday 26 January 2023 at to teach our 2nd year animation students the fundamentals of lighting animation in Arnold.

An understanding of lighting in Maya is a necessary part of the animation pipeline, and vital for the short films our students will make in PR5001, the 2nd year Studio Project Module which begins in 2022.

Steve will cover the fundamentals of lighting with Arnold, showing how our animators can achieve successful lighting setups with minimal complexity. We also have a series of videos on lighting at our Vimeo Channel to support the classroom instruction.

Materials, Lighting & Rendering Tutorials at Vimeo

3D VFX at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel 

Our Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for Materials, Lighting and Rendering.  

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

We have tutorials on Materials, Lighting and Rendering in Arnold, Renderman, Unreal Engine, and also how to use Qube, the Escape Studios' Render Farm. 

3D VFX Tutorials at Our Vimeo Channel

Vimeo Tutorial Channel - 3D VFX 

Our Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for 3D VFX; the majority of these tutorials were created by Head of Animation Michael Davies.

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

We have tutorials on 3D Modelling in Polygons and NURBS, UV Mapping & Texturing,  Materials, Lighting and Rendering in Arnold, Renderman, Unreal Engine, and how to use Qube, the Escape Studios' Render Farm. 

Steve Lall "Lighting for Animators" Tues 7 Dec

Steve Lall teaching at Escape Studios

Studio Assistant Steve Lall is back on Tuesday 7 December at 9.30 am to teach our 2nd year animation students the fundamentals of lighting in animation.

An understanding of lighting in Maya is a necessary part of the animation pipeline, and vital for the short films our students will make in PR5001, the 2nd year Studio Project Module which begins in 2022.

Steve will cover the fundamentals of lighting with Arnold, showing how our animators can achieve successful lighting setups with minimal complexity.

We also have a series of videos on lighting at our Vimeo Channel to support the classroom instruction.

Tutorial on Physical Shaders in Arnold

We've uploaded a new series of tutorials at our Vimeo Channel, on the use of Physical Shaders in Arnold, taught by UG Program leader Michael Davies.  

In these tutorials you will learn how to create materials for glass, metal, thin film & iridium, sub-surface scattering, and cloth.

Lights & Shadows in Maya with Michael Davies

We've uploaded more Maya tutorials to our expanding Vimeo Tutorial Channel.

These latest videos teach the art of Lighting and Shadows in Maya with Michael Davies.  This new series of videos is an introduction to the basics of lighting and shadows in Maya, including Gobos and Effects.

Rendering in Maya and Arnold at Our Vimeo Library

Arnold is the principal ray-trace renderer that comes bundled with Autodesk Maya. Below are some simple lighting setups in Maya and Arnold that can be learned very quickly and get great results. 

For our students who want to render in Arnold, animation tutor Lee Caller has put together a YouTube playlist of videos. 

In addition, UG programme leader and third year animation tutor Michael Davies has recorded his own Arnold tutorials, which you can find at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel here.

Lighting For Animators with Steve Lall

Steve Lall teaching at Escape Studios

Studio Assistant Steve Lall will teach our 2nd year animation students the fundamentals of lighting in animation today.

A basic understanding of lighting setups is an important part of the animator's toolkit, and a necessary part of the short films our students will shortly be making in PR5001, the 2nd year Studio Project Module which begins in a few weeks.

Steve will cover the fundamentals of lighting with Arnold, showing how our animators can achieve successful lighting setups with minimal complexity.

We also have a series of videos on lighting at our Vimeo Channel to support the classroom instruction.

Directed Study Week Starts Monday 6 Jan

Digital lighting

All our undergraduate students have a directed study week starting tomorrow, Monday January 6th. For our first year undergraduates, we have created an online project for all our students that will help them to learn about camera and lighting in Maya.

Lighting and camera are essential skills that will benefit all of our students during the course of their studies at Escape Studios.

Francesca Pesce to Teach at Escape Studios

Francesca Pesce

We're delighted to welcome Francesca Pesce, lighting and comp supervisor at London animation powerhouse BlueZoo, to teach our masters' degree animation students at Escape Studios.

Francesca will be coming to Escape on Thursday 12th September and on Tuesday 17th September from 6pm until 9pm, to help our MA students on their team project work.

Francesca is a veteran of the Blue Zoo series Digby Dragon, and brings a wealth of experience in lighting and compositing to the MA students.

Ash Ellis Teaches Lighting

Ash Ellis at Escape Studios

Our Animation and 3D Studio Assistant, Ash Ellis, took over the Animation Short Course for one day last week to teach our animation students the fundamentals of lighting in animation.

​Animators don't need a high level of expertise in lighting, as they are generally judged by recruiters and studios purely on their animation skills.

Nonetheless, a basic understanding of lighting setups is an important ancillary skill, part of the animator's toolkit.

Kim White Reveals Secrets of Pixar Lighting

Kim White, Director of Photography on Cars 3

At this week's VIEW Conference in Turin, Cars 3 Director of Photography Kim White talked about what is involved in lighting a Pixar film.

As you'd expect, lighting a Pixar movie isn't just about technical skill - it's about helping to tell the story, supporting the narrative and solving visual problems along the way.

As Pixar movies get more and more realistic in their visualisation, the lighting department has had to draw on sophisticated reference and resources to make their work believable.

Why Does Maya's Batch Render Light Too Dark?

Utah Teapot

Lighting your scene using Autodesk Maya can be a tricky process. You finish your shot, light your scene, you get your lights to look just the way you want them to. And when you render out a single frame, everything looks fine. But then, when you come to do a batch render of your frames, Maya gives you something quite different - and much darker. And it's not what you wanted at all.

Why does Maya do this - and what is the solution?

Mental Ray is Back! - Free For Student Use

Mental Ray is back! 3D Render by Amaru Zeas

Mental Ray is Back! NVIDIA, makers of this classic ray tracer that used to come bundled free with Autodesk Maya, have released a version of their software which is free for student use. According to NVIDIA, "this program is designed for institutions of higher education who use Mental Ray as part of their curriculum." It's certainly good news for our students, because Mental Ray has a number of advtantages over its successor Arnold.  In particular, you can achieve some very quick and attractive lighting setups in Mental ray using Physical Sun & Sky, the closest thing Maya has to a "Make It Look Cool button".  So, how can our students get a free copy of Mental Ray?