LEARNING PATH

Lighting and Rendering

Lighting is a critical part of the production pipeline responsible for not just the ability to see, but also for how the audience will feel. Effective 3D lighting requires understanding cinematography and storytelling while working with technical topics, including light types, temperature, global illumination, caustics, fog, materials, compositing, and color grading.

This series of eleven workshops explores professional animation, cinematics, and visual effects workflows by accomplished artists who have worked for Pixar, DreamWorks, Digital Domain, Wētā FX, and Blizzard Entertainment. Featured Lighting & Rendering Path instructors have credits including Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Inside Out, Infinity War, Diablo IV, and Overwatch. Software taught in these workshops includes Maya, Houdini, V-Ray, Arnold, and Nuke.

Beginner to Advanced 42h 29min 11 Workshops

By 9 Instructors

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Practical Light and Color

Lighting Supervisor Jeremy Vickery presents a 1h 56m lecture focused on the practical fundamentals of light and color, essential for both 2D and 3D artists. The lecture covers how light works in the real world, discussing bounced light, shadows, atmosphere, and camera effects in a non-technical manner. The core goal is to provide a solid theoretical foundation that can be applied to any image creation process...

by Jeremy Vickery

Beginner

1h 56m

8 Lessons

Cinematography Color Theory Lighting & Rendering

Introduction to Lighting & Compositing for Cinematics

Jon Perez provides insight into a professional workflow used at studios for cinematic production, aiming to help artists improve the quality of their environments, assets, and animations using industry-trusted lighting and compositing techniques. The course covers setting up software, scene development in Houdini, and final compositing in Nuke...

by Jon Perez

Beginner

4h 29m

14 Lessons

Compositing Lighting & Rendering Texturing & Shading

Nuke

Arnold

Houdini

Introduction to Lighting for Animation

Lighting and Compositing TD Alex Corll shares his 1h 48m process of lighting a shot from start to finish using Maya, Arnold, and Nuke. The workshop guides artists through scene assessment, initial optimization, establishing base lighting with an HDRI, refining the light with key and fill lights, using Arnold blockers, adding volumetrics...

by Alexander Corll

Beginner

1h 48m

6 Lessons

Cinematography Compositing Lighting & Rendering Look Development

Nuke

Arnold

Maya

Unreal Engine 5 Lighting Fundamentals

Lead Digital Projects Engineer Charleston Silverman provides a 3h 11m fundamental overview of the Unreal Engine 5 lighting system, essential for artists new to or migrating to UE5. The course details various tools and techniques...

by Charleston Silverman

Beginner

3h 11m

9 Lessons

Game Engines Lighting & Rendering

Unreal

Practical Lighting for Production

Senior Lighting, Compositing & Look-Dev Artist Graham Cunningham guides you through a 4h 00m intermediate-level production workflow to light and composite a full-CG shot to match a cinematic reference...

by Graham Cunningham

Intermediate

17 Lessons

Compositing HDR Images Lighting & Rendering Look Development Texturing & Shading

Nuke

Arnold

Maya

Cinematic Lighting Shot Production

Senior Lighting Artist Graham Cunningham takes you through the entire 4h 03m advanced production workflow for lighting and compositing a cinematic shot using an industry-standard pipeline...

by Graham Cunningham

Intermediate

4h 03m

14 Lessons

Cinematography Digital Sets Lighting & Rendering Visual Effects

Nuke

Arnold

Katana

Maya

Introduction to Katana

Katana is a powerful lighting and look-development application. This by Senior Lighting & Look Dev TD Taeyoung Kim walks through the basics of Katana and explains how to create a lighting template that can be used for your own shots.

by Taeyoung Kim

Beginner

3h 47m

20 Lessons

Compositing Lighting & Rendering

Nuke

Katana

Arnold

Lighting & Look Dev Essentials Vol. 1: Lighting Theory

Naughty Dog Lighting Artist Ted Mebratu shares his advanced 2h 12m workflow for achieving cinematic results in Unreal Engine 5, focusing on interior lighting. The workshop teaches both the traditional static/baked...

by Adrien Vallecilla

Beginner

7 Lessons

Compositing Lighting & Rendering Look Development

Nuke

Redshift

Maya

Look Development and Lighting Techniques for Film

VFX Artist and Director Miguel Ortega breaks down the look development and lighting pipeline used in two shots from his award-winning short film, “The Ningyo.” The 3h 23m workshop focuses on using...

by Miguel Ortega

Intermediate

3h 23m

11 Lessons

Compositing Effects Animation Environment Art Environment Design Lighting & Rendering Look Development Texturing & Shading Visual Effects

Nuke

Maya

V-Ray

3D Scan Integration Techniques

CG Supervisor Adrien Vallecilla shares a complete 5h 45m VFX workflow for integrating a photorealistic 3D scanned asset (a train) into a backplate. The tutorial covers hard-surface modeling in Maya, texture clean-up and projection in Mari, look-dev, lighting and rendering with V-Ray to match the scene, and professional compositing using Nuke...

by Adrien Vallecilla

Intermediate

5h 45m

9 Lessons

Compositing HDR Images Lighting & Rendering Look Development Modeling Texturing & Shading UV Layout

Nuke

Mari

Maya

V-Ray

Creating a Sci-Fi Sequence using Houdini Solaris

Elevate your Houdini Solaris and USD skills in this comprehensive workshop taught by Lead Lighting Artist Andreas Kjær-Jensen. Perfect for lighting artists and generalists getting started with Solaris...

by Andreas Kjær-Jensen

Advanced

6h 7m

15 Lessons

Compositing Digital Sets Effects Animation HDR Images Lighting & Rendering Texturing & Shading Visual Effects

Nuke

Houdini

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about the Learning Path.

Learning Paths have been organized to help both aspiring and professional artists, who are looking for training based on the fundamental categories of creative work in the visual effects, animation and games industries. Each Learning Path has been curated to contain a collection of workshops that guide artists through a series of topics relevant to that path, but they are not necessarily sequential. When appropriate, however, we have organized the workshops in a path to be in a logical order. All workshops are tagged with their level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) so that you can browse the path and choose a title that matches both the subject matter and level that you are looking for.

All Gnomon Workshop instructors are professional artists from the entertainment industry, who have worked with us to structure their time, experience and knowledge into practical and inspiring training. We believe that it is important to learn from masters of the craft, who have honed those skills via years of experience working in production, collaboratively with their peers. Through time and experience, artists develop not just their creative and technical ability, but also their communication skills. These become critical aspects to being an effective lead artist, supervisor or, in our case, instructor.

Whether you choose an Annual or a Monthly Subscription, your plan will give you unlimited access to all 26 Learning Paths, allowing you to learn at your own pace. Your subscription also gives you access to the entire catalog of 350+ workshops, with new comprehensive workshops added every month.

While many workshops include Project Files, these are at the instructors’ discretion. You will find details of any project files provided on each workshop page, along with the software/tools required to tackle the workshop. If you have any questions, you can contact us via our Live Chat or email the team at support@thegnomonworkshop.com.

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Over 350 Workshops. 250+ Instructors.
Concept Art, Visual Effects, Games and much more.
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Lighting and Rendering

Practical Light and Color

Introduction to Lighting & Compositing for Cinematics

Introduction to Lighting for Animation

Unreal Engine 5 Lighting Fundamentals

Practical Lighting for Production

Cinematic Lighting Shot Production

Introduction to Katana

Lighting & Look Dev Essentials Vol. 1: Lighting Theory

Look Development and Lighting Techniques for Film

3D Scan Integration Techniques

Creating a Sci-Fi Sequence using Houdini Solaris

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