I think shading and lighting are ridiculously cool, and often get overlooked as really important parts of computer graphics.

Most people who are new to this, that I know, setup their lighting and shading with a single Arnold Skydome and an aiStandardSurface node, yet this is only a fraction of what is possible in this area.

I want to talk more about ways of building details using noise and patterns at the shader level, as well as talk about some cool tips for adding details to volumes before rendering them through Arnold.

There’s also much fun to be had with lights. Not only the pure maths and integration done by renderers, but also using volumes to advect light in cool ways. I can’t wait to share more on this subject soon!

-Henry