Can someone explain the difference?
 

Would some kindly soul give a brief (one line description) of some the different Maya surfaces (Lambert, Blinn, Phong, Phong E, Ramp Shader etc) and what (roughly) is the difference between them is.

What I was thinking:

"A lambert is XYZ, and it differces from the rest because it has ABC attributes.
A Blinn is this-and-that, and is good for reflective surfaces etc etc"

Sorry if this is a dupe thread, I had a search and didnt really find the type of answers I was after.

Cheers for any help everyone!
Az

lambert: has no specular component and can be made into a constant shader by ramping up the ambient colour.

blinn: good for metals and plastics (it's the most commonly used shader). has specular and reflection properties.

Phong: Another variation of the blinn model, but with more components for controlling the specular highlight.

ramps: fade from one (or more) colours into other colours. Can also be used to control attributes such as decay, tranparency etc. (must use greyscale maps for that though)

That should be enough to be getting on with :)

Alan

Such a quick reply, Thanks!

I currently trying to light a simple scene of a lamp (with point light 'inside'), table and chair.

What surface would be best used for the lamp? It is a coloured lambert atm, I'm trying to get some light seepeing through the shade itself, to then light the other objects in the scene. I'm trying the Translucence setting, but it is having no effect, should I be using a different surface for the lampshade?

Hope I'm not bugging people with all the questions! :confused:

Fear Me For I am Uber-Noob :bandit:
Az

you could use a point light, but what you need to realise is that cg light behave very differently to real world lights. Things like translucency etc are expensive effects, what you want to do is fake it with other lights.

So I would use a spotlight as the main source of light from the lamp e.g. pointing down, then have spill lights and fillers acting as diffuse light (remember cg light doesnt bounce like in real life!!) That would be how I'd start it. Start with a picth black room and then add more lights until it feels right checking after you add each light.

As for the material, use a blinn because lamberts have no spec and even if you dont want spec you can always turn it off in the blinn by turning it right down.

Post some pics and lets see how you are doing.

Alan

Doesnt Mental Ray photon bounce as in real life?

possibly I dont know, but we're not talking aobut mental ray atm... :) we're talking standard maya lights :)

Well, with Pure_Mornings great explenation of Blinn and Lambert, I was able to put this little bitty togther.

Hope you like, C&C welcome as always.

Lamp WIP

not bad for a first attempt, but remember to add fall off and decay to your lights so that you get a smooth gradient fall off.

Alan