Camera Projection Mapping in Maya

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-maya/camera-projection-mapping-in-maya/

camera projection and layered surface shader in Maya 2010

http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showthread.php?28221-camera-projection-and-layered-surface-shader-in-Maya-2010

The HDRI Handbook 2.0 is out

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Combine Bump 3d and Bump 3d together

connect multi-Bump 3d node and keep their it's own bump value control:

First show Left and Right hidden

Out Normal -> Normal Camera


This also work on 2d bump chan, too! And also chan 3d bump and 2d bump together...

This give you different level of bump control, and easy to see!
sample maya file!

Other bump resource on internet!

bake OCC texture from maya / mentalray

Thanks Bernard's info....

Baking Ambient Occlusion Maps using Maya from Duylinh Nguyen on Vimeo.

motion vector from Maya render pass

Motion Vectors - Example II from Sagroth on Vimeo.

And the Sigillarium Blog

Quick note:

1: Add a "Normalized 2d motion vector" pass in render setting, and set normalized 2d motion vector > Render Pass Parameters > Max Pixel Diap. (your render images width size, but 1024 is max), Filter is ON!

2: In render setting > Motion Blur > Motion offset to 0

3: render quality is 4x32bit float!

linear color workflow in Maya shader

Here is something about linear color workflow in Maya shader

http://whetstonevfx.com/blog/?p=91
http://www.gijsdezwart.nl/tutorials.php
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-appearance-on-fxguide-linear.html#links
http://linearworkflow.com/
http://3dlight.blogspot.com/
http://vimeo.com/8119194

please be careful the maya mentalray node call "mia_exposure_simple"

Base on eat3D training setting mia_exposure_simple

set Knee: 1.0/ Compression: 0/ Gamma: 2.2

it works exactly like nuke's LUT function, good for render out some color pass such (beauty/ diff/ spec/ refl/ refr/ sss/ oc...etc), if you output format is gamma 2.2(sRGB)'s Tiff/ TGA..etc, you will need to leave "mia_exposure_simple" on and set gamma 2.2 to render. But if output format is EXR in linear color space, you might set "mia_exposure_simple" gamma to 1.0

Well! personal feel you will need to break mia_exposure_simple from maya camera, since this node does some strange result on RGB color matte (darker color)/ Point in space render (points become all flat, no depth) what I discover recently.....

and the Final, Great thanks Stu / Zap and Kuan Lin..... who inspire me all the linear workflow

uv pass from maya mental ray

create an render layer call uvPass_R

add a new Custom Color pass in render setting and rename call uv

and send the uv pass to uvPass_R render layer

need mib_texture_vector / surfaceShader / writeToColorBuffer

connect surfaceShader to writeToColorBuffer

connect mib_texture_vector to writeToColorBuffer

in writeToColorBuffer > Frame Buffer Options > Customer Color Pass set to uv pass

in mib_texture_vector > Parameters > project set uv mode

last step assign surfaceShader to objects and the final node graph will be like this

Point Position and Object Normal in Maya mental ray

Point Position (Point World):

create 3d point clouds from Maya and view it in Nuke 3d space!
Create a render layer ex: pointSpaceR
base on what kind of point space you need: pointCamera / pointObj or pointWorld (mostly this one)> Surface Shader's outColor

one thing about use linear workflow in maya mental ray, camera's mia_exposure_simple node must be remove/ break connection.

This point position render can be apply in Nuke's PositionToPoints node, xyz input for this point space render/ col input for normal color render.

Base on D.T. training said, point space render suggest openEXR format and no anti-Alias render feature turn on!

first: in the pointSpaceR render layer in render setting> Passes> Create a new "Beauty" passes from maya render passes library> Add to associated passes
second: double click the beauty and dis-check "Filtering" and set Frame Buffer Type "32-bit Float", of course you also need to enable "RGBA (Float) 4x32 Bit" under Quality/ Framebuffer in render setting.

object Normal:
object normal pass can be render with point space pass together, simple add a default pass call "Object Normal (World space)" from library. this also suggest turn off anti-alias on render.
This just the object normal only, no texture normal. If you need texture normal as well, just use colorR render layer that already has well texture bump and displace map setup to add the same "Object Normal (World space)", will get the object normal and texture normal together.

.ma vs. .mb…which is best?

.ma vs. .mb…which is best?

simple Fresnel shader for maya

Thanks Matte's class:

use samplerInfo node's facing ratio > ramp's vCoord (by middle mouse drag simplerInfo to ramp, and select "Other" to open Connection Editor!)
and use mentalray render...
and better output format like 16bits Tiff or float EXR

Furry Ball 1.3 realTime render plugin for maya...

來自捷克的產品, 分明要Vary RT for Maya難看....

downside:
so far only support file texture...
seems only use maya software shader...
no Ray Trace shadow...hmmm...
GIsetting's AO type "Geometry Elements" ...GPU fail???
DOF, when camera change too extreme focal length and Camera hit object... GPU fail????
need more shader support....

the biggest downside is no linear workflow ... should I ask a realTime system has linear color workflow feature?

Introduction to Shave and a Haircut for Maya

and http://www.joealter.com/

maya mental ray mia_material sample!

感謝Zard提供的maya 2008 mental ray mia_material sample!

Digital Lighting and Rendering_great book to read!

These days I have been reading a book call "Digital Lighting & Rendering", now is the second edition, written by Jeremy Birn. My classmate Chris Hung told me that book must read around 10 years ago. I think never be late for so such great resource about CG 3d lighting and rendering, and I am getting so much stuff in this book.
I type a small section content which really inspire me a lot!
something about lighting the night scenes:
..."You may noticed that most night scenes in Hollywood movies feature wet pavement, which looks as if it had just rained. This will be true even in dry cities like Las Vegas. Cinematographers are always looking for ways to capture extra glints of light and reflections in their night scenes. Since they have discovered that spraying water on the streets is a great way to get the city lights to reflect off the street, and make prettier night scenes with more highlights in them, they do this even when it is obviously a cheat."........... .

Caustic example in maya

Glass Caustic render in Maya mental ray:
1: Get ready for model and one spotlight aim to glass model.
2: Apply mental ray's shader "dielectric_material" to the glass model, and set spotlight shadow mode by raytrace shadow. (if you render a preview now, will get some basic reflection and refraction with a plain shadow without any photon refration)
In order to let photon appear with shadow, need to keep work on couple things below:
3: In "dielectric_material" shader's ShadingGroup> Custom Shaders> Photon Shader to add new shader call "dielectric_material_photon" from mental ray shader library>Photonic Materials.
4: In "dielectric_material_photon" setting, set "Col": shadow's photon color, "lor": refraction rate (glass is around 1.52/ water is around 1.3)
5: On render setting> Caustics and Global Illumination> to turn on "Caustics"
6: On the spotlight setting>mental ray>Caustic and Global Illumination" to turn on "Emit Photons", "Photon intensity":18000~300000, "Caustic Photons": set the photon detail.
And you can do the preview render for the caustic result!
If you have missing the shadow that behind the front glass refraction, The problem you are having is due to the settings both in you Spot Light and Render Settings. To fix the issue you need to increase to Ray Depth Limit to 5 in the Ray Traced Shadow attributes of your light, and in the Render Settings increase the Shadows to 5 in the Raytracing section.
The reason why you need to make this change is because of the number of bounces the rays are doing in the scene. Your glass has both an inside and and outside, making 2 sides, times by the front and the back side make 4 surfaces the rays need to penetrate through. Therefore the Raytracing settings need to be set to 1 unit higher, hence 5. This allows for the 4 bounces plus 1.

maya_sample file