mt003 - How to create a realistic Light Lamp in Maya?

In this tutorial, we will walk you through the process of creating believable Lamplight using Maya. To give lamp realistic effect we just can't put a single point light in the middle but we have to use multiple lights with different settings to produce the result we are looking for.

As you can see in image below we have used one directional Light for fill light and five points light for flames. Point lights provide illumination to the flames while one directional light fills the dark area of the scene.

Shaders on the walls, floor and other props are general shaders. Flame shader needed some special attention. Create a custom shader network for the flame shader. Place two 2d file texture nodes in Hypershade one for flame texture and second for flame transparency. Attach both the 2d file texture node to candle_flame.psd located in the source images folder. Rename them as flame_texture and flame_transparency. For texture node change Link to Layer set to Flame_Texture and Transparency File node change it to Alpha and Alpha to use to Alpha1.

Now drop a lambert node in Hypershade. Shift+Middle drag the second 2d file texture node on to the lambert node. Connection editor will pop up. Connect file node’s out color to the Color and also to the incandescence node of the lambert shader.Now drop a lambert node in Hypershade. Shift+Middle drag the second 2d file texture node on to the lambert node. Connection editor will pop up. Connect file node’s out color to the Color and also to incandescence node of the lambert shader. Similarly connect first 2d file texture out color to transparency of the lambert shader.

Candle flame texture setup is complete. Now its time to refine the flame. create a simple plane as illustrated below and assign the flame texture we just created to it.

Now setup the lights as described below.

Point Lights...

Point Lights Shadows... 

Directional Fill Light...

If you need glow on the candle flames go to Lambert shader and in Special Effects attribute give some glow to the shader. This was a quick walk through for creating believable candle flames in Maya.