Newbie question.
 

Hi, I just started using maya a month ago and im hooked :) , but i have two questions thats been bothering me for a while now. How can I make my model look more real ? For example ive seen a couple of WIP renders on this site and it looks like real plastic, Ive tried using different colors but I could never get it to look real like plastic, is it because they are using another type of rendering method or is it just shaders ? or is it a plugin ? and my 2nd question , how can i change the black backround when in render view whenever i render something.. thank you..

anyways here is a person i made using the tuts from this site!!
very helpfull site i might add.

http://www.pbase.com/image/21752696

how can i make this look real like real plastic or something that has realism.

"plastic" illumination :D
path a) download a plugin called gi_joe from pixho the site is full of threads telling why what and how... it fakes the real deal on maya software

path b) the real deal, search for hdri images on google, download one, put something on the scene you want to get illuminated, make a big sphere and search the command to reverse the normals of the sphere so that they point inwards, create a lambert and plug the hdri to its color, up the incandescence of the lambert to 75%white, go to render options, render using:mental ray, options: put a tick on final gather... hit render

yep, we didnt used lights... you can put some after, be subtle tough...

youll need to investigate further on mental ray... change more parameters etc, but i think that will set you in track, play with it :P

thanks for pointing me to the right direction :thumbsup:

Actually, it's a combination of things as lighting, shaders, etc. which all work together to form the illusion of 3D. Dragon mentioned a couple rendering/lighting options. For further info on what he's talking about, search around for info on "Global Illumination" and "HDRI" so you have a better understanding of what they are. While that's all well and good, IMHO you should pay attention to simple shader creation before getting mired down in that.

Creating a basic plastic isn't too difficult. Try assiging a blinn to an object and play with its eccentricity (0.1) and specular roll off (1.0) settings. Also change the specular color to pure white. Do an IPR render and drag-select the rendered object. You should see a green box around the portion you dragged. Now, you can fine-tune the blinn's settings and get auto-updates in the render window.

thanks alot :) will try that.