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.
mmalhomsi You can create a thread on the forums for your homework. Just start the thread title with BC4-1810 so that Kent can find it when he does a search.
@theluthier O grades, where art thou?
probably just an oversight, but I don't think I ever got any comments or grades on my week 1 or my week 2 work (though my week 2 was in the favorites for my car).
mmalhomsi The "deadline" is midnight your time tomorrow (so end of day Sunday)
gradyp Thank you . it got fixed . blender runs a bit faster now . seems indeed the map was hidden (that was the reason i never finded it .) again thanx for the help :D
HELP!!! My render turns red. I am using blender 2.8 for the character lighting homework. In remder mode, everything seems fine but when i render the whole image turns way more red.
Could you please someone advise about the pro and contras regarding using texture coordinates instead of UVs?
Watching some tutorials where it is mentioned that then the model no need to be UV unwrapped, that would be a big plus. Although almost everyone has the UV unwrap workflow when using images for materials, so the texture coordinates presumably has some downsides
csehz I think if you have a photorealistic texture which has to look the same as it would be photographed, like wooden floor planks, it's better to uv unwrap to make sure it sits perfectly right on the surface. Also if you want to paint your own textures uv unwrapping would be the way to go.
But for something like grunge/scratches/dents/etc you can use coordinates and box project, since you want variety with that. It's harder to place it exactly where you want but you can make sort of a mask with something like a noise texture.
In Cycles you can also use the pointiness value of the geometry node or the AO node to mask out edges / crevices, but in eevee that doesn't work (yet). I'm assuming you're using eevee since you also love it like me! 😀
For my scene I'm working on I only unwrapped the floor and the wall, since that's just a plane. I'm not good with unwrapping yet, so for the rest I use texture coordinates and box project.
csehz I'd agree with what ssmurfmier1985 said. When it matters that a texture appear precisely in a spot, UV is best. For example, the clothes that I put the stripes on, for them to look correct, you have to use UV coordinates or they don't look right, particularly around where you would naturally see seams anyway. I have used stripes in Generated or Object texture coordinates, but in those cases, I'm often doing something more abstract and the placement and look is a bit different and can, in some cases, be harder to control the overall look. that's why for things like grunge, either works just fine.
aarev If you could share a screenshot of your scene and/or a file, that might be helpful to help solve the problem.
You might take a look, in the mean time, on the color management tab and see if you have curves turned on and make sure that the red channel hasn't been accidentally turned up.
gradyp I dont have curves on so i have no clue whats causing it. I did find that filmic wasnt on, but turning it on diodnt help much. I am attempting another render with a slight change to the lamp setup, if it doesnt imporve i will leave ut for another time.
ssmurfmier1985 , gradyp thanks a lot, briefly so texture coordinates can be used when the image is tileable and no need for specific precision, while the UVs are better in that.
I'm assuming you're using eevee since you also love it like me! 😀
Miranda yes absolutely! :-) Eevee is so much fun that all the shading and lighting changes immediately can be seen, anyway it is my only chance also to meet the deadline, since with Cycles it would be much harder to reach to the point of the final render on my oldie laptop. Okay maybe the final render would be anyway a little bit better still with Cycles, but the Eevee is already ideal for the travel till that. Or how to say :D
Oops the dealine, 23:59 is here and did not post anything yet for Week3.. :D
csehz Eevee rocks! 😬
You can also use non tilable textures with the texture coordinates. The 'box project' function on the image texture node projects it from many different angles instead of one angle, to make it look more random. Works great for grunge and scratches etc. You can up the blend value of the image texture node to make it less noticeable that it isn't tiled, that gets rid of the seams.
pro and contras regarding using texture coordinates instead of UVs
Just try to unwrap dyntopo sculpt :D
@theluthier Sorry to make you struggle with my username each week. You can pronounce it "Cah-thool-oo-san". Inspired by Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu and chosen very late one night when I had to pick a username for my deviant art account.
Loving the class so far. Learning tons and it has me in the software doing specific things and stretching my blender muscles.