Template:Maya lights

There are several lights in Maya. You can create lights using the Create > Lights menu.

An overview:

Ambient Light			Emits light uniformly in all directions. Don't use when using Mental Ray with Final Gathering or Global Illumination for realistic lighting scenarios. The scene will look very flat when you use too much ambient.
Directional Light			Emits parallel rays of light across the entire scene in a certain direction.
Point Light			Emits light in all directions from the center of the point light.
Spot Light			Emits a cone of light from the center of the spot in a certain direction.
Area Light			Emits light from one side of a 2D surface.
Volume Light			Fills a volume with light. Outside the volume, the light will have no effect.