The mental ray^® for Maya^® renderer can render using a feature called Global Illumination. Global Illumination simulates the effect of all lighting and inter-reflection in the scene, whether the items are lit directly by a light source or indirectly illuminated by other objects (and diffuse sources of illumination in the scene).

For example, when a photographer lights an object in a studio, some of the lighting for the object in the final image comes directly from the lights that are used, while additional illumination comes from objects that are placed near the subject to act as light reflectors. These are referred to as fill cards. Light bounces off the fill cards, indirectly lighting nearby objects with a secondary source of diffuse light. The color of the fill card colors the light that gets reflected onto the object. The final illumination of the object comes from this combination of multiple sources (direct light, specular reflections, and diffuse light).

The Global Illumination feature in the mental ray^® for Maya^® renderer simulates this effect and provides for a realistic illumination simulation in your Maya scenes.

In this lesson you learn how to:

• Differentiate between images made with Global Illumination compared to other lighting types.
• Render an image using Global Illumination by performing repeated test renders to achieve a final result which includes:
  • Lighting a scene using the mental ray Global Illumination attributes.
  • Adjusting the Global Illumination attributes and quality settings in a systematic manner to achieve a high quality image.
• Visualize photon maps for the scene.