Rendering
P in any 3D animation is rendering. Although rendering isn't glamorous, proper attention to the process can improve any project. In particular, you can save time and energy by splitting up renders based on objects or shading components. You can even separate shadows from the rest of the scene or temporarily assign objects to specialized materials through the Render Layer Editor. Careful attention to rendering can also prevent such problems as raytraced black pits. Last, specialized rendering...
Rendering SuperWhite Values with mental ray
Aside from rendering HDR textures with their full dynamic range, the mental ray renderer is able to render super-white values generated by intense lights or high material attribute values. Super-white refers to any value in Maya that exceeds the bounds of the 0 to 1 color range. You can push the majority of attributes in Maya past 1. Even if the attribute is represented by a slider with a default maximum of 1, you can push the slider past 1 by entering a higher value into the attribute field....
Estimating Project Requirements
A calculator is a much-needed part of any animator's arsenal. Calculations are not limited to modeling tasks and scripting exercises they're also needed to estimate a project's completion. For example, you decide to output a 3-minute animation to video. How long will that take In terms of rendering time, you can employ the following formula n seconds x n fps x n render passes x n seconds per frame Although the shots of a simple project may be rendered in a single pass, a more complex one might...
Breaking Up NURBS Surfaces
It may seem that NURBS surfaces are inappropriate for complex models. Although NURBS are difficult to master when it comes to organic modeling, they are actually well suited for anything that is mechanical or man-made. The trick is to think in parts. As an example, here is an instant coffee tin created with NURBS surfaces. An instant coffee tin and a 3D facsimile 1. Choose Create CV Curve Tool and draw a curve in the top workspace view that establishes the upper-right corner of the can. To...
Avoiding Raytraced Black Pits
When raytracing reflective and refractive surfaces with either the Maya Software or mental ray renderer, black pits often appear. There are several steps you can take to reduce or eliminate the pits. First, increase the Reflections and Refractions attributes to their maximum limit. These are found in the Raytracing Quality section of the Maya Software tab or the Raytracing section of the mental ray tab within the Render Settings window. These attributes allow each light ray to reflect and...
General Rendering Tips for Your Reel
When preparing renders for a demo reel, you want to maintain the maximum degree of quality. Here are a few tips for achieving this goal Render out as large as time permits. Even if your reel is destined for video, you are not required to render 640 X480 frames. Rather, you can render any multiple of the 1.33 aspect ratio. For instance, rendering 1280 X960 frames produces greater render quality. You will have to shrink the frames down to a proper video resolution however, the process of image...
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hair light, 136 hand-painted bitmaps, 110 hand rigging, 104-107, 104-106 hands.mel script, 12 hard_color.mb scene, 120 hard_color_2.mb scene, 121 hard cuts in demo reels, 196 Harden Edge tool, 40 Hardware Render Buffer window, 169-170, 170 hardware rendered particles, 119 121, 120-121 Hardware Texturing option, 56 HDR images. See High Dynamic Range HDR images HDR_render.mb scene, 179 HDRShop program, 175, 177-178 head.mb scene, 44 heads weighting, 99-102, 99-101 Heat Voxel Sec attribute, 73...
Timing with timerX and Killing with scriptJob
Obviously, saving with every selection change is overkill. A second important element of an autosave script is thus an ability to track time. timerX provides that ability by serving as an internal stopwatch. You can note the current time, then derive elapsed time, with the following lines int SstartTime timerX int tota1Time timerX -startTime SstartTime If these two lines of code are placed within two different areas or procedures of a script, total ime becomes a value that represents the number...
Normal Mapping in Maya
Normal mapping refers to the preservation of high-resolution surface information in the form of a normal map. There are two ways to undertake normal mapping in Maya apply the Normal Map preset in the Render Layer Editor or use the Transfer Maps window. To apply the Normal Map preset, follow these steps 1. Create a new scene. Build a model that can be successfully viewed in the front workspace view. It's best to create a model that has limited depth. For example, a brick wall, carved stone, or...
Preventing Cluster Drift
Clusters serve as convenient handles for groups of vertices. When clusters are used as part of a character setup, however, problems can occur if their creation is not carefully undertaken. You can create two styles of clusters absolute and relative. To create an absolute cluster, select a vertex or vertices on a curve or surface, switch to the Animation menu set, and choose Deform Create Cluster with the default settings. An absolute cluster receives transformation information from the...
Finding an Audience for a D Short Film
Short films are a wonderful format with which to tell a story. At the same time, short films are well suited for animation, where length is difficult to achieve without a huge investment of time and energy. If you are toying with idea of creating a short film, it is worth investigating various means of distribution. After all, you want a find an audience that will appreciate your hard work and artistic vision. The first place you may want to include a short is your demo reel. Although some...
Creating D on Multiple Machines
Animators often ask me what type of system they should buy to create their animations. I always suggest buying in bulk. Four 500 machines are usually superior to one 2,000 machine. With four machines, you can multitask more efficiently. Even if a 2,000 machine has dual processors, you are still limited by the number of separate tasks you can accomplish at one time. In comparison, if you have four machines, you can achieve the following Render shot A on machine 1 Composite shot B on machine 2...
Generating Swarms with Goals
In addition to soft bodies, you can apply goals to regular particle simulations. In particular, goals come in handy for the simulation of insect swarms. In order to create such a swarm, follow these steps 1. Create a new scene. Switch to the Dynamics menu set. Choose Particles Particle Tool. Click a dozen times in a top workspace view to create 12 particles. Press Enter to fix the number of particles. 2. Select the particlel node. Switch to the particleShapel tab in the Attribute Editor. In the...
Dynamics Particles and the Ocean System
THE MAYA DYNAMICS menu set includes an amazing range of effects. Although dynamic simulations, particle simulations, and the Ocean System are fairly easy to create, their refinement is often esoteric and unintuitive. In particular, rendering problems often plague ocean wakes, for which a Fluid Texture 3D volume is used. The dynamic simulation of a linked chain can create problems when combined with a character. The Instancer tool, with its default settings, can suffer from an uninteresting...
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Gamma setting, 175, 179 gear_final.mb scene, 35 gears bike pedal, 57-58, 57-58 NURBS, 33-35, 34-35 gelatin animation, 78-80, 78 gelatin.mb scene, 80 generic bitmaps, combining, scattering, 82-84, 82-83 variation for, 84-85 glass, drinking 76-77 raytraced black pits in, 166-167, 166 glass_chunk.mb scene, 77 glass_pits.mb scene, 167 glitches in animation, 59, 59 global operator process, 176, 176 global procedures, 8 Global Scale attribute, 63, 63 global variables, 54-56 Go To Bind Pose tool, 88...
Industry Tip Building a Polygon Head by Extruding Edges
The human head is one of the most difficult subjects to model. When employing polygons, many animators use box modeling techniques. The advantage of box modeling is the ability to start with a primitive that possesses dimension as soon as it's created. However, the primitives often lead novice modelers astray and the final results appear much like the original primitive for example, a head appears more spherical than it should . Another technique, involving the incremental extrusion of edges,...
Resetting to FactorySwapping Prefs Files
There comes a time in every animator's life when it'd be nice to return to the past. That is, it's sometimes necessary to return Maya to either its factory default or to a state that is known to be productive. To return the Maya user interface UI and global preferences to the factory default, choose Window Settings Preferences Preferences. In the Preferences window, choose Edit Restore Default Settings from the upper-left drop-down menu. This returns all the options in the Preferences window to...
Mapping the Iris
The trickiest part of modeling a NURBS eye is the mapping of the iris. The easiest solution requires the application of a bitmap to the Color attribute through a planar projection. You can follow these separate steps 1. Assign the iris surface to a new Blinn material. Open the Blinn's Attribute Editor tab. Click the Map button for the Color attribute. In the Create Render Node window, check As Projection in the 2D Textures section and click the File button. 2. While the Projection utility...
Building a NURBS Gear
Some surfaces are difficult to visualize regardless of whether they're modeled as polygons, NURBS, or subdivision surfaces. One example is a gear. The following steps are suggested for building a NURBS gear out of three surfaces. Step 2 does involve trigonometry, but it's not too painful. 1. Determine the radius of your gear. Determine how many teeth you would like or how many degrees each tooth would occupy on a corresponding circle. For example, 36 teeth would occupy 10 degrees each totaling...
Combining Generic Bitmaps in Maya
Tight production deadlines often necessitate quick texturing jobs. One trick is to combine generic textures within Maya. The Color Gain and Color Offset attributes, common to every texture, provides an efficient means of achieving this. For example, when a bitmap featuring a clean brick wall is combined with rusty metal and asphalt bitmaps, the end result is more complex and interesting. Top left Clean wall bitmap. Top right Same bitmap with the addition of rusty metal and asphalt bitmaps...
Rendering a Wireframe for Your Reel
When constructing a demo reel particularly one that shows off 3D modeling it is necessary to render out wireframe views. The most efficient renderer, in this situation, is the Maya Vector renderer. To render out a wireframe, follow these steps 1. Choose Window Rendering Editors Render Settings. Change Render Using to Maya Vector. Switch to the Maya Vector tab. 2. In the Edge Options section, check Include Edges. Switch Edge Style to Entire Mesh. Render a test frame. The surface, even if it's a...
The Companion CD
The CD included in the back of this book is an important part of learning with Maya Professional Tips and Techniques. Sample scenes, shading networks, QuickTime movies, HDR files, and texture bitmaps are included to help you perfect your knowledge. Please note that all scene files have been prepared with Maya 8.0. As such, you may not be able to read them with an older version. The various techniques have been tested with a beta version of Maya 8.5. Minor variations between version 8.0 and 8.5...
Industry Tip Animation Project Management
Project management concepts are not limited to the dry, dull, world of corporate business. You can apply them to any size animation project to help you meet your deadline goals. Tim Kelly, lead visual effects instructor at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, offers his advice in this area Remember to constantly review your sketches, scripts, storyboards, and any other pre-production materials during production. Nothing is worse than finding out at the last minute that you missed a detail, causing...
Animating Realistic Camera Moves
The strength and simultaneous weakness of 3D animation is its lack of boundaries. That is, if you have the time and enough available CPU cycles, you can create anything. Although this freedom is a huge boon to creativity, it generates an equal number of pitfalls. One significant pitfall is the creation of unrealistic or unbelievable camera moves. Animators new to 3D, in fact, are liable to create flying, spinning, twirling, or zooming movements for the most mundane subjects simply because they...
Adding to Your Demo Reel
As an animator, your reel is never truly complete and must be updated periodically. Although 3D animation is a fairly young industry, enough reels have been created and watched to have spawned a demo reel wisdom that differentiates between a good and bad reel. Much of this wisdom is available on the Internet through animation websites. I've combined some of the critical elements of this wisdom with my own experiences reviewing reels as part of the animation hiring process Avoid cliched demo...
Adding Additional Variation to Instanced Geometry
One disadvantage of the Instancer tool is its desire to orient all the instanced geometry in the same direction. As demonstrated in the previous section, you can create an expression to help randomize rotation. You can also choose Instancer attribute options that relate rotation, position, and scale to standard particle traits. These attributes and options are found in the Instancer Geometry Replacement section of the particle shape node's Attribute Editor tab. For example, you can vary the...
Retrieving Values from Fields
One of the trickier aspects of MEL scripting is the creation of numeric fields in which users can enter new values. newcam.mel creates two of these one in the Lens frame and one in the Clip frame. The following line creates the Lens field and establishes the size of the camera lens string Sholdera intFie1d -width 45 -value 25 -minValue 25 -maxValue 250 -changeCommand int cam_1ens intField -query -value enteredValuea enteredValuea The intField command creates an integer field. The -width flag...
Industry Tip Scattering Geometry with Instanced Particles and Expressions
Maya particles are extremely flexible and can emulate a wide range of objects. One key to their flexibility is their ability to instance geometry and derive transformation information from expressions. James Chandler, a Maya instructor for Westwood Online College, offers a method for planting rocks across a surface with instanced particles. Rocks are planted on a ground plane by instancing them to particles. The scale and rotation is randomized by an expression. 1. Create a new scene. Create a...
Prepping Animation for mm Film
For the presentation of 3D animation, nothing beats 35mm motion picture film. It has been the standard for motion pictures since the late 1800s, when Thomas Edison created 35mm film strips from stock supplied by George Eastman. For 3D animation to be captured in 35mm, digital files must be transferred to film stock. Large animation studios usually own their own transfer equipment in the form of film recorders. Film recorders are 35mm motion picture cameras mounted on specialized CRT screens or...
Choosing Between Bit and HDR Formats
The Maya Software renderer supports 16-bit IFF and TIFF image formats. The red, green, and blue channels each possesses 16 bits of storage, providing a total of 48 bits and potentially providing 2.814749 77X1014 colors. Hence, 16-bit renders are often sufficient for many projects. The disadvantage of the 16-bit bit image format is its inability to be manipulated by specialized HDR tools. For example, the exposure range of a 16-bit image cannot be adjusted in Maya, Photomatix Pro, or Photoshop...
Mastering Naturalistic Lighting
Naturalistic lighting is not dependent on a particular number of lights. Instead, the technique strives to match the lighting of the real world, whatever it might be. Every naturalistic lighting setup is different. Therefore, specific steps for achieving good naturalistic lighting cannot be written in stone. Nevertheless, some general guidelines are appropriate First, identify the strongest source of light and determine its origin. Is the light coming from a recognizable object, such as a lamp...
Splitting Up Renders per Object
On professional productions, finished animation is rarely rendered in a single pass. Rather, the animation is split into multiple passes. That is, various objects are rendered separately, producing multiple sets of frames. The advantages are as follows Individual frames render more quickly since less geometry is involved. You can render static parts of the scene, such as a background set, as a single frame, saving a significant amount of render time. If there is a glitch that only affects one...
Animating Gelatin with a Soft Body
Soft-body dynamics create interesting deformations on otherwise solid objects. The difficultly lies, however, with the degree to which the object deforms and the methods by which the deformations are controlled. Suggested steps follow for creating a block of gelatin hitting a wall and sliding down. The steps include the use of a particle goal, per-particle goal weights, and springs 1. Create a simple set that includes a wall and ground plane. The geometry should be relatively dense so that the...
Texturing with HDR Images
High Dynamic Range Image Preview Options Float to Fined Point Exponential The High Dynamic Range Image Preview Options section of a file's Attribute Editor tab Maya 8.0 supports the use of OpenEXR, .hdr, and floating-point TIFFs as texture bitmaps assuming that OpenEXRLoader.mil and tiffFloatReader.mll plug-ins have been activated . If you load an OpenEXR or floating-point TIFF into a File texture, however, the texture swatch may appear solid white or black. You can adjust the exposure range of...
Building a Simple MEL Window
One of the most satisfying elements of MEL scripting is the creation of custom windows, or GUIs. If you're relatively new to the world of scripting, however, the MEL code can be very intimidating. With that in mind, this section boils down MEL windows into their most basic components. The following MEL script makes a simple window with two drop-down menu options, two buttons, and a short text message window -title Simple Window -menuBar true newWindow menu -label Options menuItem -label Save...
Resetting Bind Poses with dagPose
When binding one surface of a multi-surface character with the Smooth Bind tool, it's not unusual to come across the following error Skin on joint_name was bound at a different pose. Go to the bindPose to attach new skins. The error occurs when a joint in the hierarchy has at least one surface bound to it, but is not in its bind pose position. For instance, if you try to rebind a character's face while the torso and legs remain bound, problems may arise. Generally, the error message names the...
Closing Holes in NURBS Objects
Another potentially frustrating aspect of NURBS modeling is the closing of holes. This section steps through methods for sealing up the top of a cylindrical object, the top of the rectangular container, and a hole left by the Trim tool. Capping a Cylindrical Object A generic cylindrical object is included as cylindrical .mb in the Chapter 2 scene folder on the CD. Open the file and select the edge isoparm of the opening at the top of the object. Choose Edit Curves Duplicate Surface Curves....
Setting the Mood with Light Color and Position
You can establish the mood of a lit scene by carefully choosing a light's color, position, and shadow quality. Many lighting scenarios encountered in everyday life have specific looks that we are subconsciously familiar with. Additional lighting scenarios have been stylistically established by motion pictures, television, and video games. As an example, a single set is lit to emulate a warm sunset, a bright day, a moonlit night, and a scary hellhole. To create a warm sunset, a directional light...
Cleaning Up NURBS Surfaces with Attach and Detach
One frustrating aspect of NURBS modeling is the potential for isoparm discontinuity. When you need multiple NURBS surfaces, the odds that each surface will possess different isoparm counts and distributions is fairly great. If care is taken while creating the original curves, you can avoid this problem. If two side-by-side NURBS surfaces are created from the same curve or two curves that have an identical vertex count and placement , they will possess matching isoparms. If you've gotten to a...
Customizing a Tube Brush
The main disadvantage of sprite brushes is the two-dimensionality of the resulting stroke. In addition, sprite strokes tend to create poor shadows. Tube strokes, on the other hand, can be quite realistic. Tube brushes are easily adapted with the Paint Effects Brush Settings window. To adapt an existing tube brush and save it out as a new brush 1. Select a brush by choosing Paint Effects Get Brush. Paint a stroke. Choose Paint Effects Template Brush Settings. The Paint Effects Brush Settings...
Driving a Boat through an Ocean
One of the more astounding menu items in Maya is Fluid Effects Ocean Create Ocean. With a single click, you can create an entire Ocean System, complete with animated waves. Once an ocean exists, you can automatically float geometry of your choice by choosing Fluid Effects Ocean Float Selected Objects. Better yet, you can float a boat and add realistic roll and pitch by utilizing the Make Motor Boats tool. To apply this tool, follow these steps 1. With an Ocean System in place, position a boat...
Creating Realistic Eye Movement
Although the motion of a character's eye is fairly limited left, right, up, down , believable eye motion is sometimes difficult to achieve. Here are a few tips for animating eyes and eyelids Eyes tend to dart back and forth. That is, they move rapidly from one position to the next. For example, for a 30 fps animation, realistic eyes may take 4 to 6 frames to move from a straight ahead look to a look to one side. If the eye pauses, the length of the pause is determined by what the character is...
Creating an Ocean Wake
Once you've applied the Make Boats or Make Motor Boats tool, you're free to generate a foam wake. To do this, select the locator to which the boat model is parented and choose Fluid Effects Ocean Create Wake. A Fluid Texture 3D volume and an ocean wake emitter are created and the virtual foam is added to the boat's path. A sailboat creates a foamy wake. The wake dissipates behind the boat as the boat moves forward. A sailboat creates a foamy wake. The wake dissipates behind the boat as the boat...
Creating an Autosave MEL Script
One of the first features that users of Autodesk 3ds Max miss when switching to Maya is the autosave function. Although Maya has no autosave feature at this point, you can write one with a MEL script. This requires a MEL command that can sit in the background and wait for an opportune moment to save the file or to remind the user to save. scriptJob does just that. scriptJob triggers a command when a particular event occurs. If the event does not occur, no action is taken. The easiest way to...
Fractals and Noise in Math Nature and Maya
Mathematically, fractals are geometric objects that feature self-similar patterns at every scale. That is, when a fractal is viewed graphically, the patterns seen at every level of magnification are similar although not strictly identical . Although fractals appear chaotic at a distance, they are each based on a simple, reiterative mathematical equation. The equation is solved over and over with each output serving as an input for the next step. The most famous fractal, the Mandlebrot set, is...
Rendering Multiple Passes with the Render Layer Editor
With the Render Layer Editor, you can temporarily assign a material to an object assigned to a layer. This assignment does not affect the materials assigned outside the layer. This is particularly useful when rendering an object with a specialized look that requires multiple render passes. As an example, a psychedelic sphere is created. Aside from an unusual color combination, the final frame features a slightly offset red. That is, the red is out of line with the other colors, similar to an...
Industry Tip Rendering ZBrush Displacement Maps in Maya
Pixologic ZBrush is fast becoming an important modeling tool in the 3D visual effects and gaming world. Since the program is fairly new, integration with Maya remains somewhat unintuitive. In particular, importing displacement maps and rendering them properly is fraught with peril. Rocky Bright, Jr., a media arts and animation instructor at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, offers the following steps for avoiding displacement headaches. Many of the individual tips in this section were originally...
Passing Information to Files
Maya allows you to write and read custom binary files. This is useful when a MEL script needs to call on a list or if the script needs to permanently record events for example, a dynamic simulation . To write to a file, you can use this code SfileName internalVar -userWorkspaceDir SfileWrite fopen SfileName w fprint SfileWrite Maya Rules In this example, the written file, named note.tmp, is one line long and contains the text Maya Rules. The fprint command undertakes the writing. The fclose...
Wilting a Paint Effects Flower
As detailed in Chapter 1, Paint Effects offer an easy way to create complex geometry with the stroke of a brush. Better yet, you can easily animate Paint Effects strokes for unusual results. For example, you can wilt a flower, in the style of time-lapse cinematography, with a few extra steps 1. Select a flower Paint Effects brush, such as daisySmall.mel. Paint a stroke. Select the stroke in a workspace view and open its Attribute Editor tab. Switch to the Paint Effects tab to the immediate...
Massaging Curves in the Graph Editor
Maya's Graph Editor offers a powerful way to fine-tune animation. With the window, you can fix errors and refine animation by quickly manipulating the curves via their tangents and keys. Key is simply short for keyframe. Animation pops and glitches are often a result of keys placed too closely together. In this situation, a joint or similar object moves to a new position in an unrealistically short amount of time. Pops and glitches are inadvertently created when an animation has been worked on...