Thread: Workflow Advice
View Single Post
# 2 18-10-2004 , 12:43 AM
Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 12
This is rather omni-kind of question, but I'll try to answer user added image

Since this is not a character this is how you would set-up your shading workflow:

- First you need to determine what would the object look like in certain light conditions (the way you wan't to light the scene)...since you've already opted for brass, here's what to do (applies for other tyes of materials also)

you need to think in layers...first observe how to real brass looks like (see the picture - from google images)...

There are several components you can see in the picture..

- there is a base color (somewhat brownish) - in this case uniformly scattered around the object (means it's a single color material or close to it)
- then there is a really broad specular component which reacts to light in this instance from head-on situation...but it also gives us a clue (if you look at other brass pictures) that it has a rim like quality from low angles
- possibly a reflection layer that is really dim and blurry

now, you need to apply those observations into maya material... first you would start with:

- blinn material as a base

now let's apply our observation from real brass to our material:

- adjust blinn color to brownish hue (you could use color picker in photoshop to detect simillar color)
- then adjust specular component to be very broad and have kind of strong center with strong halo around it (just play with settings on specularity untill you reach something visually plausible)
- last step would be to add reflections and play with blurry reflections, but we'll talk about it in the next reply which discusses another important topic, lighting your scene

Attached Images