334 ◾ 3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya
FIGURE 12.10 Get Brush.
FIGURE 12.11 Visor window.
Specialized Materials and Material Effects ◾ 335
To provide a comparison between 2D and 3D paint eects, in Figure12.14 a polygon
geometry tree is being added to the scene. e nal result is shown in Figure12.15; we have
rendered a plane in Maya that has our brick as a texture. e tree is standing in front of the
wall and is planted in the ground plane.
Choosing a More Realistic Effect
e problem with the result in Figure12.12 is that the paint is very dark, and there is no
transparency in it, and so it does not look like it has soaked into the bricks. It seems to oat
over them.
So we have made two changes to Figure12.12. We went back to the Visor and chose a
narrower brush and gave the color some transparency. In Figure12.16, it looks a little more
like the writing is actually on the wall. Another alternative would have been to choose a
lighter canned airbrush, such as the one in the center of Figure 12.17.
THE MENTAL RAY SKY DOME
e mental ray renderer comes with a beautiful light and color eect, something that is
oen called a “sky dome,” which simulates the natural diuse light of an outdoor scene.
It looks dramatically better than simply putting a light blue on a background plane. In
FIGURE 12.12 Grati.
FIGURE 12.13 e canvas image as a le
texture.
336 ◾ 3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya
general, we are looking for that gradual increase in color intensity that we see when we look
upward from the horizon, and that is what mental ray gives us.
Figure12.18 shows our pavement, sidewalk, and light pole scene. e fog is gone, we
have added some more light poles, and we have moved everything o to the horizon.
In Figure12.19, we have chosen:
any Main Menu → Render View → Options → Render Settings → Indirect Lighting tab
FIGURE 12.14 Paint Eects—trees.
FIGURE 12.15 Grati with tree rendered.
FIGURE 12.16 Transparent grati.
Specialized Materials and Material Effects ◾ 337
FIGURE 12.17 A lighter airbrush.
FIGURE 12.18 Pavement and sidewalk scene.
338 ◾ 3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya
Then we clicked on Create next to the
words Physical Sun and Sky. The sun
and sky is created with code and so no
matter what direction the rendering
camera turns, the sky is still there. We
have also checked Final Gathering in
the Render Settings, because Autodesk
advises that it be used with the Sun and Sky, although in our example, it had no
noticeable impact.
Maya has generated a number of objects we can see in the Hypershade. Figure12.20
shows us a sunShape directional light. (e point light was already in our scene and it
has been turned o.) In Figure12.21, we see what is under the Utilities tab. e bump
maps and placeTexture nodes were already present on our scene, but there are three
new items. e mia_exposure node throttles the wide spectrum of brightness we would
normally get in an outdoor scene, so that it can be displayed effectively on a raster
display. e mia_physicalsky and mia_physicalsun nodes give us natural daylight.
Procedural environments are quite powerful. e Sun and Sky shader will carefully
mimic the appearance of a sunny sky, with an almost white on the horizon (and sometimes
FIGURE 12.20 A directional light.
FIGURE 12.19 is shows mental ray settings.
FIGURE 12.21 e Utilities tab.
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