New Free Tutorial
Lighting is essential when you want to display your models properly. In this tutorial we'll show you how to light up your finished models with this classic Hollywood lighting scheme, which is commonly applied in 3D as it lends depth to a potentially flat subject. When lighting an object in Maya and rendering it out your goal is to convey as much of the 3D shape that is present in your model over to a 2D image, and placing your lights in the correct places will help you to do this. Three-Point Lighting is a good starting point if lighting is a new field to you, and using this scheme you'll see that you can get some nice results in a quick and easy way.
Three-point lighting is one of the parts in our latest tutorial "Lighting Basics in Maya 2011" should you be interested in learning more about lighting in Maya. The scene file with the T-Rex model used in this part is included with the full tutorial which can be found here .
Grab this free tutorial here
Enjoy
David 
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"
