Toolkit 2 - Maya: Arnold Mesh Light

   This tutorial is about getting to know the mesh light capable of being used in the arnold renderer.  These ready made geometries and projections have been provided by the university. Mesh lights are made from polygon geometry rather than being separate objects in the scene, and use a parenting connection to keep the 3D projection node from separating when being moved around.

Sphere to be made in Mesh Lights

     The lines going around the sphere show there is a project node being placed onto them.

 In the Hypershade (texturing menu), middle mouse the projection nodes down into the view port and turn on connections. Hiding the 2D map bu minusing helps to keep the viewport a little cleaner. 

Bringing down the Projection Nodes

Hiding the 2D Texture Map

    Firstly, make sure the nodes are in the correct order by the projections. To make the mesh light, select the polygon and under the shape node (attributes menu) change the Arnold Translator to Mesh Light. This brings up all the normal settings a Arnold light would have. Then selecting the projection node, middle mouse drag into the colour attribute. This will place the ramp in, and finally bring up the exposure to as required. 

  At this point, when using the Arnold Renderer, the light and colour are present but no shape. To bring the shape though, switch on the Light Visible and bring the samples up to 3. 

    Repeat as needed and change the render settings in the Arnold Render to reduce noise. Its important to note that Arnold Mesh lights are resource heavy, and take a long time to render. Also, they don't do well in close proximity of other object, so should be utilized carefully in scenes. 

Finished Render