All lights used within the scene with the exception of Point Lights inside the lanterns are Arnold lights since this is the renderer which will be used.
Arnold Area Light
The most used light is the Arnold Area Light in the default quadratic shape. Every window has two area lights, one facing inside towards the stained glass image plane and the other outwards. This setup is used because windows were not accounted for during the construction of the walls making it impossible to shine an HDRI through the stained glass.
The interior light is cooler in temperature and lower in exposure than the exterior light to not add a warmer hue to the colours of the stained glass.
Interior Light Settings:
Exterior Light Settings:
Point Light
A Point Light is used for the lanterns because of the soft global light it produces and a Frosted Glass aiStandardSurface preset is used for the lantern glass because of its ability to store and transmit light in a natural manner. In contrast the Glass preset does not allow for light to pass through even though it's a material with a higher transparency.
Point Light Settings:
aiStandardVolume
A great part of the overall atmosphere inside the scene is assisted by the the fog that accentuates the light coming from the stained glass windows.
This fog was created using the aiStandardVolume shader with cloud preset maps native to Maya. On the left is an example and link by Autodesk of how to use a displacement map with this shader.
For the fog in my scene I used a polygonal cube which covered a window surface with one of its faces while the opposite extended down under the floor. Afterwards attached the aiStandardVolume shader to this mesh and adjusted the cloud density, formation, etc, until the fog had the desired transparency yet retained volume. This effect was mainly controlled by the Transmission.
aiStandardVolume Settings:
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