What you'll learn

In this Maya tutorial, you will learn how to dramatically improve the realism of your lighting by incorporating a linear workflow into your rendering pipeline. We will begin with an explanation of the linear workflow process, and help to clarify exactly why a linear workflow is needed is order to get lighting results that are much more realistic. From there, we will learn the various steps for setting up a linear workflow in Maya, including the use of Maya's Color Management features, gamma-correcting images and textures to be rendered and displayed correctly, maintaining a proper linear workflow during the compositing phase, and many additional tips and techniques that will help you get much more realistic lighting results with significantly less effort. Software required: Maya 2012.