ATTN Ewout - Wiki Maya Tutorial

You can find it at:

Ewout

I've just found your tutorial and started running through it, it is
very helpful. I have stumbled on a problem though and am a bit stuck,
I wonder if you could give me a pointer? I have already added a
couple of lines into the wiki to help newbies to Maya like myself ;-)

I get to the point where you specify your HDRI picture and then select
the texture buton to open the 'Create render node' window, but then it
says select 'file' but I can't see anywhere to specify a file there.
Hope you can help, I'd really like to get into maya

thanks

Rich


here is the step:

this bit !

 

Ewout

Hello Rich! It's good to see response like this, because it helps
improving the tutorial all the time!
As for your question, it's a bit hard to answer right away because at
the moment I don't have acces to a computer with Maya, but I'll try to
do it from my memory... It that doesn't help, I'll be able to give you
the exact instructions on wednesday.

Ok, so you created an IBL-node. Your then in what's called the Attribute
Editor, the right side of your Maya window. Can you tell me what you
see then? I'm not 100% sure here, but I'm almost sure it should pop-up.
It's called the 'Create Render Node' window, and it looks like this
(this is just an image I found with Google):
http://dannyn1.web.aplus.net/torque/maya2dts/img/04_03c_createrendernode.jpg

That's the File option I'm talking about...

It feels as if I haven't really helped you with this, but I'll post some
more screenshots next wednesday or thursday I you really can't figure it
out.

good luck!
Ewout

 

Ok, so you created an IBL-node. Your then in what's called the Attribute

- not very clear talking here )
I wanted to ask what you see when you clicked the checkered box next to
the texture field.

I made a phone call to someone, to verify this. It was the way I
explained it in the tutorial, so maybe you missed a step?

Maybe it's confusing, "next to the texture option" -- I'm not talking
about the texture option in the dropdown menu (where you switch from
"Type: Image File" to "Type: Texture", but a bit more down the Attribute
Editor. You see a black square, a slider and the chechered box there.
That should open the "Create Render Node" I'm talking about.

does this help?

Ewout

 

Ewout

Thanks, I see now. When the 'Create Render Node' window pops up, It
was defaulting to the 3D texture section, there is no file button
there. When you move up and select 2D texture then it all makes sense
and the file button is obviously there.

I'll keep going through to the end and let you know how I get on!

Thanks again, very much appreciated ;-)

Rich

 

Hi Ewout

I've progressed a bit further now but am slighty stuck again ;-)

After finding the file button with your help and picture, I come to
the initial pre render with the single material. I cannot seem to get
anything remotely near the quality of that render. its either over
exposed or underexposed and very bland.

I wonder if you could give me the settings you used for Ambience,
Ambient, Diffuse, and specular to compare? I don't get the nice
reflections or the contrast between the lighter and the base. They
are the same material right? and the look the same in mine, in yours
there is a definate difference between the base and the lighter.

Anyway, thanks for your help, I do really appreciate it.

Regards

Rich

 

I'm sorry that my tutorial is so hard to follow, I thought it was quite
clear actually, but I'll look into improving it.

As for the materials: I used the standard settings, but apparently (as
shown with the "Create Render Node" Window) your standard settings
differ from mine (and some others I've seen).

However, I use two different materials, a Lambert shader for the plane
(which is the default material assigned to new geometry you create
within Maya), and the Blinn as explained in the tutorial.

I guess the best advice I can give you here, is to fiddle a bit with the
material settings until you think you get it right. It's not very
important to have it look exactly like my (example-)render.
That's just a temporary solution. When you follow the rest of the
instructions, you'll see that I give you quite exact instructions on
what settings to use. After I wrote the tutorial, I did it myself from
scratch, to see if it's right. I really think this is about the results
you should get, the only problem with the stage you're in now is the
default settings (on which you depend there). When you assign the
'final' materials, there's not many default settings left (just look at
the pictures for an exact copy of my settings).

Anyway, I hope you can finish it. If you can, post a link to your
resulting render!

I'll make a list of good follow-up tutorials, because this should be no
more than a case-study-introduction. I do believe however, that after
this tutorial, you will have seen enough settings to be able to develop
your rendering skills on your own.

Ewout

 

Ewout

its not hard to follow, just seems to be these defaults. I'll maybe
add comments to the wiki wherever I get stuck.

I didn't want to advance too much further without having something
that looked at least similar to your render for fear that I had
something else wrong.

ah, that'll probably be why it looks different then.

will do!

I will, guaranteed!

That would be FANTASTIC. I'm sure lots of people would appreciate
that me included.

I think so too, I think I'm already bitten, but time pressures on
other projects sometimes stop be progressing as far as I'd like. I
would really like to get good at this though.

Thanks for all your help, I'll leave you alone now until I get
something finished ;-)

Take Care

Rich