This gives you a list of options including Area, Skydome, Mesh and Photometric.

To create an Arnold light source you'll want to head over to the 'Arnold' menu at the top of the interface followed by 'Lights'. Use default lighting when create your model. While modelling though if we would like to see something other than a flat unshaded model then we can use Maya's default lighting with Shaded display. Once you've created your model there is still a lot of work required to get it to the point where we can render it into something beautiful! Out of the box a Maya scene doesn't have any light sources which means that we need to create them. Before we start go to 'Windows' -> Rendering Editors' -> 'Render Settings' and select the Arnold. That means that they act in a mathematically accurate manner the same way that they do in the real world. The benefit of these lights is that they are all physically accurate. We'll therefore explore the lights that ship with Arnold. So because we're going to be using Arnold we also want to make sure that the lights we use are compatible with it. Now I know that we've not got to the rendering section of the series of tutorials but in essence the renderer that we want to use will affect the lights that we will want to create. Know the Basics: Maya Part 1: Interface Know the Basics: Maya Part 2: Viewports and Navigation Know the Basics: Maya Part 3: Modelling Know the Basics: Maya Part 4: Organisation Know the Basics: Maya Part 5: Animating Know the Basics: Maya Part 6: Motion Graphics Know the Basics: Maya Part 7: Shaders & Textures As of 2017, Maya ships by default with a renderer called Arnold. In part eight of the Know the Basics: Maya 2017 series, Paul Hatton explores the lights that are available with Maya's default renderer, Arnold.

Arnold render view