Maya Tutorial: Lighting for VFX Part 1 - HDRI Setup & Balance

TIMESTAMPS BELOW - This was recorded live without any prep work so will not be fully accurate. The video was created for students with zero prior knowledge of vfx/software.
There are many ways to approach lighting for VFX so there may be better or worse ways to approach it. This particular methodology is fairly similar to the way I've approached lighting when working on feature films and TV shows in the past. In part 2 we will continue the shot further.

00:00 - Intro
00:23 - Shot Overview, looking at the plate and lighting
04:20 - What to do if you do not have an HDRI image to go with your footage
07:00 - Setting up a scene to begin lighting tests (with an HDR/Skydome)
08:10 - How to add a reference plane to your scene (on-set ball & macbeth chart reference)
09:35 - Creating your lighting spheres and adding shaders
11:45 - Tweaking your HDR (We begin rendering and altering the HDR)
17:20 - Using our HDR in photoshop as reference (for adding more lights similar to on-set)
19:30 - Grading our HDRI image in photoshop
22:00 - Dealing with green screen (NOTE* I will key out the green screen on the HDR using nuke in part 2)
24:00 - Adjusting your exposure AFTER grading the HDR
27:00 - Colour correcting our HDRI further within Maya
30:30 - Alternative method to using a colour correction node in maya (mentioned in audio but not demonstrated)
34:00 - Final result after tweaking the HDR colour and exposure

*NOTE * Unfortunately I cannot share the assets publicly (footage/HDR/Shoot reference), these are exclusive to the students I am working with.

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This was recorded whilst live streaming to students studying Visual Effects and uploaded shortly after so editing is limited.

The videos on this channel are created by a professional Visual Effects Generalist with experience across Films, TV & Commercials.

The channel provides a variety of tutorials based on Visual Effects Techniques such as Modelling, Tracking, Texturing, Lighting, Rendering, Animation & Compositing.

Software that will be covered includes: Autodesk Maya (with Arnold Renderer), Substance Painter, Mari, Houdini (with Mantra), PFTrack, 3DEqualizer, Nuke, Zbrush & Photoshop.