Lighting/Shading
 

Hi There,

When I click on "Assign Existing Material" under "Lighting/Shading" I just find 2 option only :(
How can I rest it to have all colors that should be in ?

Thanks

maya has default only a couple of shaders that can be assigned to objects. if you want others materials (and you will), you'll have to create them first. in the hypershade for instance, you can create new materials. after that you can tweak them as much as you like to obtain the desired material. after you created your new material, it's available under existing materials.

Thanks tiz for helpping me,
I will try to create it by myself but is there different between "lambert1 and particalCloud1" ?

Thanks again man :)

particle cloud can for instance be used to achieve effects like gas or clouds. it's not something you need right now i think. lambert is a rubber-type material.
you can create all sorts of material types in maya, that all have different properties, which you can tweak to achieve look you're after. in maya's help function, you can read about these materials and what you can use them for.
(help>index>rendering>surface materials)

good luck.

tiz

A shader primer
 

Shader attibutes
Ambient color: appearance of the surface color assuming even illumination thoughout.

Diffuse: controls how much light is absorb and how much is bounced back. A matte surface has a lower diffuse setting than a shiny one.

Color: local hue of the surface.

Transparency: controls a material's opacity White being fully transparent and black being completely opaque.

Specularity: Controls the angle light is bounced. Smooth surfaces such as marble will have low specularity while a rough surface such as wood would have a high specularity.

Bump: simulates surface height details by using a grayscale image to define areas as high (white) or low (black). Does not affect the geometry and generall only appears in render unless a scene panel is set to high quality and the video card can handle it.

Reflectivity: controls a surface's reflective properties. Mirror=high reflectivity

Incandescences: simulates a light glow effects. this is a render effect and does not actually cast light in the scene. Glow is an incadescent property that defines the "brightness" of and incandescent effect.

Shader types
Lambert: basically a flat color, no specularity. Suitable for matte surfaces that have no shine or reflectivity

Blinn: good all purpose shader that includes option for specularity and eccentricity, the default settings give a semi-gloss appearance. can be made to look like most other shaders by raising and lower attributes.

Ramp: provides gradient transistions with multiple colors . Great as a foundation for a cel shader.

Phong: is basically a lambert with high contrast specular highlight suitable for shiny or reflective surfaces such as plastics.

Anisotropic: simuates a grooved surface where light is bounced at varying angles. suitable for satin, velvet, cd/dvd surface types.

Ocean shader: umm.. gee... this one is for simulating water, with special attributes for wave height, amplitute, etc.

Phong E: similar to phong, but adds controls for roughness and whiteness, allowing a softer appearance and varying specular intensity.

Shading map: basically a ramp that controls shadows and highlight for a materials surface.

Thanks tiz and mhcannon for this useful informations.
I will try to make it.