[b-kandor]

Hi,

There are actually tons of books about '3d lighting'. I'd like to of course buy the best one available - so do you have a recommendation?

Thanks!

Kandor

[jc4d]

Hi b-kandor
Jeremy Birn is the father of 3d ligthing (at least for me), in amazon you can find his books http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting- ... 035&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting- ... 035&sr=8-3, and he is a moderator in CGtalk (I think is the same guy) http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=185

Cheers
JC

[Jeff Tamagini]

i agree with JC that is a great book

[michaelplogue]

With the way that Maxwell emulates real-world photography, you may be better served looking for a 'lighting for photographer's' guide.....

Just a thought.....

[glebe digital]

I'm with Michael, get some good books on photography and they'll pay dividends.

[codygo]

The rendering for Mental Ray books have a great deal to do with the properties of light, sampling, and other technical points on 3d lighting/rendering/texturing that are pretty universal. It helps as a good foundation for breaking down surface properties like lambertian, blinn, anistrophy, specular, fresnel, etc... that you wouldn't get from a photography oriented book. A 3d book and a photography book are probably equally important.

[b-kandor]

Thanks for the tips everyone! The 2nd addition binn book isn't available in Canada on amazon, very weird. But I can find it elsewhere...

[iandavis]

b-kandor,

lighting for 3d is normally quite different then lighting for photography. In every rendering engine save Maxwell and FryRender (that I know of) one must employ fakes to simulate the way light bounces, etc.

I suggest you search for a lighting book in a photography store, or not narrow your search to 'lighting for 3d' but instead study the properties of light pertaining to photographic lighting. Being a photographer is the single best way to understand lighting in maxwell.

[jeso]

oh yes, jeremy's book is a must have

[andrebaros]

I read [digital} Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn and Essential CG Lighting Techniques by Darren Brooker and while both were very good books I have to say that they help very little for the Maxwell workflow. Much more useful would be books on real lighting, theatre lighting or studio lighting or architectural lighting... whatever your subject, but except for a few chapters on the concept of light and color the traditional CG stuff doesn't help a lot.

[simmsimaging]

The title is cheesy and stylistically it's very, very dated but if you can find a book called "secrets of studio still life" you'll have a great tool for some solid photography lighting setups that will be directly applicable to Maxwell.

I bought my copy in 1990, and it was getting long in the tooth then, but you may find a used copy somewhere.

b

[jfrancis]

Light: Science and Magic

I started a separate thread on this book before i saw this thread.

[simmsimaging]

Light Science and Magic is also an excellent book. Can't go wrong with that one either.

b

[codygo]

I just remembered this document, pretty good read. Pixel Cinematography:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ses/teaching/inf290/calahan.pdf

[b-kandor]

Light: Science and Magic

I started a separate thread on this book before i saw this thread.

I ordered this book, looking forward to it!