Final Project submission checklist

Final project submissions MUST include the following:

• 3 renders @ 1280 x 720 resolution
• 1 of your renders should show a different lighting setup.
• zip file containing:
• maya file
• textures

GI/AmbOcc/FG workflow

• Create a light in your scene and enable photon emmission
• Disable use default lighting in the render settings
• Use the default quality settings and render
• optional: attache a MR physical light shader to the light. This approximates physical lighting through the value of the light's color. A way to derive an accurate value setting is to divide the photon intensity of the light by PI (3.14). 
• optional: attache a mia_exposure_simple node (under Mental Ray lense shaders) to the camera(s) you are using to render. This will enable fine-tuned exposure control for your lighting.
• Increase Photon Intensity until you can see the image or have the brightness near what you want.
• If the Photons hits are splotchy (and they will be) increase the number of GI Photons emitted.
• Raise the Accuracy by 200 until you can't see much difference. Go back to the lower setting when you couldn't see a change.
• Is there enough detail, or is it looking soft and blurry? If too soft, increase the number of photons.
• Use the map visualizer to see how the photons are hitting in the scene. Adjust your light source? Add in additional lights?
• Adjust gain and compression in the mia_exposure node 
• Use MIA_material and enable ambient occlusion. 
• You might now need to decrease your Photon Intensity (because you now have more photons illuminating the scene).
• Again, raise accuracy by 200 until you can't see much difference.
• Repeat until satisfied.
• If you decide to add in Final Gather to help smooth out results:
  • Turn on Precompute Photon Lookup in RenderSettings>IndirectLighting>Final Gathering Map.
  • Try immediately decreasing by 1/2the number of Photons emitted . You probably can get by with less and this will save you render time.
  • You may want to increase the Photon Intensity so its effect is still evident.
  • All the normal Final Gather attributes come into play now and need to be tweaked.
  • With Global Illumination turned on, Final Gather will not use "Secondary Diffuse Bounces" Keep that at zero.

Global Illumination, Ambient Occlusion and Final Gather

http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/MR_Rendering_an_interior_scene_with_artificial_lighting_(GI_and_FG)

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~bailey/Courses/Tutorials/Ext_Int_Lighting/Gi_Reminders.html

http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/Mental_Ray_Ambient_Occlusion_tutorial

http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/MR_Using_mia_exposure_simple#Exposure_control_and_File_textures

Bonus tools and auto unwrap uv

Autodesk Maya bonus tools:

http://area.autodesk.com/bonus_tools

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/bonustools-2013---uv-tools

Auto UV unwrap demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyhwoZTrB_s

Texture painting tips and workflow

• You can paint on 3d objects in Maya and Phototshop
• Use a variety of brush shapes
• Use a variety of opacities 
• Sample from existing textures with the clone and pattern stamp tools
• Blend layers on top of each other
• Paint texture guides in advance in Maya
• Use a wacom tablet
• Use photoshop brush textures
• Use crazy bump to generate normal and spec maps
• Use high quality rendering and lighting in Maya to see normal and spec.

Workflow

1. Layout UV's
2. Paint base colors in 3d (optional)
3. Perform UV snapshot and/or establish photoshop network
4. bring snapshot into Illustrator for vector work
5. add new layers in photoshop, begin painting base texture patterns using guides
6. add new layers in photoshop, sample and clone from source material
7. blend layers together using blend modes and opacity changes
8. save PSD, update network in Maya
9. Correct texture seams using Maya or Photoshop 3d paint
10. use final color map to generate spec and normal maps using crazy bump.

Week 3 lecture

• creating photoshop networks
• painting textures in photoshop
• process:
• establish base color layers
• sample (clone) patterns from image files
• blend
• on 2d image
• on 3d object
• painting textures in maya
• using 3d paint tool to establish texture guides
• removing texture seams
• offset filter
• live 3d cloning
• blending procedurals and bitmaps
• crazy bump
• intro to Mental Ray

Project 2 - Battle Scene

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gqg1esnu3tdm4x7/battleScene.mb