Power of Light by Michael Tanzillo

Want to become a Lighting Artist but have no clue where to start? This workshop gives you a solid, software-agnostic foundation so you can light clean, readable images for animation and live-action integration.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How to create mood with light and support story
• How to direct the viewer’s eye using contrast and color
• How visual shaping ties key, fill, and rim together
• Differences between point, directional, spot, area, and ambient lights
• How to control color, intensity, decay, shadows, and gobos
• How to set up and tweak lights in Maya

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with 3D software interface, no prior lighting experience needed
• Tools: Maya installed for following along with practical demos
• Hardware: Computer capable of running Maya

📝 Description

This is an intro course, but it skips the button-pushing. You start with why light matters — mood, composition, and eye direction — then you get into how to actually build it. Short lessons, clear examples, and a challenge to test what stuck.

Then you break down the toolbox. What a point light does vs. spot vs. directional. When to use area lights for soft, believable shaping. How color and intensity change the read of a shot, how decay falls off, and how shadows and gobos add depth without adding clutter.

All the demos are in Maya, but the ideas transfer anywhere. Point, area, directional, spot, ambient — plus attributes — are the same concepts you will find in Blender, Houdini, Unreal, or any renderer. If you want to light animation or sell a CG object in a live-action plate, this is the ground floor.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Beginners who want to become Lighting Artists and need fundamentals first
• 3D generalists, animators, and modelers whose renders look flat and need better presentation

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Mike Tanzillo spent over 12 years as a Senior Lighting TD at Blue Sky Studios, with credits on Rio, Rio 2, Epic, Ice Age films, Peanuts, and Ferdinand. He now makes pretty pictures for Adobe Substance. Before 3D, he trained as a photographer and studio artist with a BFA in Photography from Ohio State, then earned an MFA in visual effects from SCAD before joining Blue Sky in 2008.

🏁 Final Result

• A lit portfolio shot that shows mood, clear focal point, and clean light shaping, built with core CG lights and attributes