Maya 2011 Mental Ray Portal Light Physical Sun and Sky Tutorial by Stuart Christensen

The Mental Ray Physical Sun and Sky indirect lighting system is perfect for replicating the look of natural daylight for exterior scenes, but needs a little help to transfer that light quality from the outside to the "inside" of an interior room or building within the scene. This architectural lighting situation calls for the Mental Ray Portal Light to help you achieve a balance between the interior and exterior in a scene. This tutorial by Stuart Christensen will explain how to attach and use this most versatile light. You will be amazed at what this lighting method can do for your Physical Sun and Sky simulations. Let there be "good" light! Give it a try!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Maya 2011
• Mental Ray
• Portal Light
• Tutorial'' Physical Sun Sky
• Stuart Christensen

[MrCgsky]

please, when you have time,

i have big problem over and over with sun and sky light, i work in the beggining with custom quality, and everything works fine, but when i switch to production or something else, everythig comes black and can not turn it back as it was..:/

do you have some idea?

big big thnx!!

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@MrCgsky Not quite sure as to what's going on with your "black" issues, however, Mental Ray specific shaders will always look black in the viewport, and you must enable Final Gathering and/or Global Illumination in the global render settings. Open the render settings window and under the Features section check that they are enabled. Hope that helps.

[darkrockcounty]

nice tutorial. I have a question does maya suface shader like phong , the dielectric material to simulate a glass table and the dgs material for chrome work with the physical sun and sky?

also iam using my interior scene with animated character. is this good for animation?

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@darkrockcounty Deepfriedectoplasm commands you to make a test and report back the results!

[0fVolfAndMan]

the wall that has the "window" in it and the portal light, that whole wall is dark

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@0fVolfAndMan Not sure I'm following you, but yes...the wall is dark and can be adjusted with additional light if needed. After all Maya is great at simulating light but it can't possibly think of everything and create 100% exposure tolerances. However, not sure of what the question is at the point...More info?

[Gates2Aion]

@Gates2Aion hmm I don't seem to have the other utilities the only one i have is materials , so i can't select the untilties table at 28:57

[Gates2Aion]

hello I can't seem to get the mia_physicalsun on hypershader please help thank you, stuck at 11:04

[BerserkerGackt]

thanks this really helped me with one of my final projects

very nice speech u did at the end :)

[GaroCARP]

thx a lot Stuart!!!!!! 

[123chrichri]

you help me too much..thank a lot

[evilchimp69]

awesome tutorial.ima vray guy but mentalray rocks!