I published a collection of my light match .blend files, as was discussed during the class. You're welcome to reference those if you'd like. Also here's links to the reels 
shiennar put together:
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #4 (Oct 31, 2018): Class is officially over! Please check the closing post and don't forget to fill out the questionnaire 🙇🏻♂️
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #3 (Oct 9, 2018): Grades for week 1 homework are recorded. Feel free to keep an eye on this spreadsheet (BC4-1810 tab at the bottom) throughout the month. Please let me know if I miss anything!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #2 (Oct 3, 2018): 4 mighty Citizens have heeded the call to become Volunteer Assistants (VA's). They are: 
silentheart00, 
thecabbagedetective, 
csehz, and 
galledark. This means that between the 5 of us, there should always be a helpful presence both in this homepage thread and your individual homework threads throughout the month. Thank you VA's!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #1 (Oct 1, 2018): Class is officially in session! Check the syllabus below for Week 1's focus and assignments. Begin watching the pre-recorded courses if you haven't already and I'll see you tomorrow at the first Live Event! 💡
Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Shading & Lighting with Blender! The art of shading and lighting your Blender scenes and models can make or break your renders. It's a very important - even enlightening - skill to develop as a 3D artist.
This "Class" format invites all Citizen members to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:
WHEN? The class will take place from October 1st - Oct 30th.
Abstract: There are some core concepts to lighting and shading (S&L) that need to be understood first. Things like global illumination, render engines, shaders, materials, and node networks some of the things we will be over-viewing this first week. I
Goal of the Week: Familiarize (or re-familiarize) ourselves with core S&L concepts.
Pre-recorded course to watch:
Week 1 Live Event (Remember to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: The Eevee render engine is the latest and greatest rendering tech in Blender and we're going to stretch its legs for week 2. The subject is going to be a sports car, but any vehicle will do. After all many of us spent this past June modeling vehicles and we're eager to get them lit and pretty!
Some topics we'll cover along the way include materials like car paint, rubber, metal, and leather along with HDRI environment lighting.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 2 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: Character lighting is a very intentional art and how to do it well is often a mystery. This week we'll look at how to develop striking character renders, build simple materials that accentuate your model, and even the concept "painting" you character with light for surreal effects.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 3 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: Arch viz rendering is often a coveted skillset among lighten enthusiasts. This week we're looking at lighting interior architecture for realism, featuring natural outdoor light from windows and artificial light from light fixtures. We'll also explore creating the necessary materials for our interior.
Pre-recorded course to watch:
Week 4 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Shading & Lighting with Blender" class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask Kent and fellow participants questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, Kent will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of October to review homework and answer questions.
Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication and participation is reserved for Citizens.
nekronavt Pavel I am just reading through the threads and can not count already how many issues you solved for so lot of people regarding 2.8 and Eevee.
You are such a great resource, if there would be such option on the forum I would like to follow all of your comments :D
nekronavt Thanks. Is it also posible to have a backkground image (not hdri) in addition to the hdri and have that one visible? I know i am asking alot now....
aarev I think you can just put a plane with your background image behind the car using the emissive shader, so it won't be affected by lighting. Or just add this background later with Photoshop or Krita for example.
csehz thecabbagedetective You guys guessed it: The asterisks denote "Volunteer Assistants". But yikes, I didn't consider that it would mess up the report card charts. I'll remove the asterisks and simply change the cell fill color.
aarev Super strange - sorry about that guys. Wonder why it's that way. If you followed the vehicle class you know I modeled it to scale. I wonder if 2.8's refreshed unit system is *that* different. 🤔
nekronavt You're a saint! Zsolt is right to give you a shoutout: You've been a tremendous help to everyone this month 🙇🏻♂️
@theluthier Following Pavels tips i got it sorted. It doesnt go away, but up to a certain distance its fine.
Regarding the 2.8 version of Blender and especially mentioning that for new members - in August Jake made a great summary in BC1-1808 class about it with title "Tips for Transitioning to Blender 2.8", it can be found on page 4 in the main class thread and definitely worth to read:
jakeblended could you please advise shortly how you see, were there a lot of updates in the last two months since then?
williamatics William thanks for the info, accordingly on the 'Consolidated Report Card' sheet your submissions merged to your first and surname version.
You know it is not a big deal just perceived that those lines might be duplicates, simply nice to see and follow who are new in the class with the eventual need of more help, with your 3rd class participation you are definitely experienced :-)
csehz Hmmm....I'll take a look and see if I might be able to add anything to that post. There are a few new features, but nothing that changed the experience too much....except, the new Workspaces, that was a big change. Maybe I'll add some information about those. I was already using some saved layouts in Blender 2.79, as I found it much easier to switch back and forth between them than to be constantly opening and closing new viewports and switching editors and all that over the course of a project. These Workspaces work very much like those, except you can save a few more different kinds of settings with them. After I'm done with the class work this week I'll put some bullet points about them into that post. I'm glad people are still thinking of that post and linking people to it!
Hello, maybe some one could make a little hint: when you make hdri lighting in eevee, how to make that hdri to appear as a background too?
svetimas As far as I know eevee automatically shows the HDRI in your render.. there is an option to specifically turn it transparent, but in the standard setting it is turned on. It didn't show up when you rendered it?
ssmurfmier1985 i had the same it showed yesterday in workspace but not yet as rendering
svetimas Are you just putting the HDRI in the LookDev shading or in the world settings? If you're just putting it in the LookDev, it's only affecting the preview. If you want an HDRI to show in your render, you need to make sure it's in World properties. by default, this is set to a background color of grey.
If you do have it in the world settings, then what Miranda said is correct.. It should automatically show in the render unless you set it to transparent.
gradyp Thanks, you were both right. In the world settings I set HDRI image not to the correct node. Then everything looked OK in render mode and as Miranda said I have turned it on LookDev mode. Thanks!
Shortcut Quick Tip: If you want to use a texture, select the Node and press ctrl+T. This will instantly add a Texture Coordinate and a Mapping Node in front of it. Works also with other Nodes. Looks like the Node Wranglor addon has a lot more useful functions than just the Ctrl+Shift+Click. 👍
bbsdwerbeagentur Oh, it does :D another great one is Shift-S to switch the selected node to a different node :D (about the only nodes you can't switch to are group nodes you built yourself)
Got a general question, not sure if this is the best place to put it. Can we put some of the exercises we completed on our Artstation or Websites?
