Introduction to Maya - Modeling Fundamentals Vol 2
This course will look in the fundamentals of modeling in Maya with an emphasis on creating good topology. It's aimed at people that have some modeling experience in Maya but are having trouble with complex objects.
# 1 24-11-2002 , 02:27 AM
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Need help with shading stuff.

I'm not very good at texturing, and all of my models are still in their dull, gray state, so I'm trying to master it now. I went through aldesigner's "How I did it" tutorial and learned a lot, but I still don't understand the complex parts. For instance, if I grab a glass shader from the library and apply it to an object, it isn't transparent. All I get is a solid texture that looks sort of like glass. I tried to go into the attributes of each one of the swatches it was made up of, but couldn't accomplish anything. You see, I don't know what the best thing is to add to an object if I want it to be transparent. It seems as though you can just pick any old swatch from the utilities menu, attach it to the material, then click "color output" then "transparency" in the connection editor to get it to be transparent. I just need to know more about it all I guess. Perhaps someone should do a complex disection of hypershade in a tutorial.

# 2 24-11-2002 , 03:06 PM
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a good place to start is a|w's how to sections , click it and check it out, if you didn't go there already ...


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# 3 24-11-2002 , 05:12 PM
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Thanks a lot. That has a lot about shaders and such. Just what I needed.

# 4 25-11-2002 , 12:55 AM
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The best thing you can do is to learn the basics of material attributes.

Color- main appearance.

Transparency- based on color as to how and where an object is transparent. Basically a white to black will do for you with white being the most transparent and black being the most opaque (light-blocking).

Ambient Color- appearance seen with ambient lighting, use this to affect the Color slot user added image

Incandescence- this affects how much an object glows on it's own. It does not become a light source, but is visible in the dark. Same as the transparency, white to black again with white causing the most effect.

Bump Mapping- as the name suggests, bump mapping will create a "textured" surface. Once again based on black and white. You can use colored textures in this slot but your best bet if you used a color texture for you main color is to make a black and white copy for the other attributes to get the desired look.

Diffuse- this is how much of the Color slot shows versus the default grey basically. Use this when your texture is too light or dark.

Translucence- black and white based yet again, this affects how much the material will glow with lighting, as in a lit candle, the wax has some translucence with makes it appear to glow near the tip user added image

Start with those and then move on and learn the rest user added image

Darkon


Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

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# 5 25-11-2002 , 01:54 AM
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LMAO! darkon!!!

why do i always confuse myself between darkon and darkware ??

# 6 25-11-2002 , 01:59 AM
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Actually, I know how to do all that. I know how to make mirrors and chrome and stuff like that by simply adjusting those things in the attributes window. I'm talking about linking swatches in hypershade together to create a complex shader. Like starting out with a blinn, then linking a bump map to it, then linking a sampler info swatch to the blinn and so on and so forth. That's what I can't do. I downloaded several shaders from Denfo's site and some from Alias|Wavefront's site, then graphed them onto the work area in hypershade to see what the basic layout of some look like. They can be as simple as a blinn and a bump or as complex as ten swatches all joined together somehow. Anyway, I'm not that foreign to hypershade and simple textures - I just don't understand why certain nodes are linked to other nodes and swatches.

# 7 04-12-2002 , 07:45 PM
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I was watching a tutorial video at digital-tutors on just that today. You can check it out here: *********************************/digita..._rendering.htm. Watch the tutorial about putting a label on a bottle. It goes through setting up a shading network as part of the project. Maybe that will help a little.

# 8 06-12-2002 , 04:46 PM
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Thanks a lot. That helped out. As of now, I am trying to create a texture that has colour 1 solid and colour 2 tranparent. I tried something simple like a checkered texture. I can't seem to make colour 2 tranparent. I figured that after you create the checker tex., you could go into hypershade, create a lambert shader, then attach it to the checker tex. through something like out transparency to colour 2. That didn't work. I tried linking transparency to colour 2 and that didn't work either. I tried linking colour to colour 2, but that didn't work either. Nothing ever works for me in hypershade when I try to think logically. Only the basic textures (ei. lambert, phong, blinn) seem to have a transparency attribute that I can link to colour 2. I assumed that you would simply do one of the things I tried, but I can't figure it out.

# 9 06-12-2002 , 08:26 PM
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i just created a real simple shading network for you needs.

you basically have 4 textures (file) and 2 checkers. the 4 textures are for:

color1: first color of the "color" checker
color2: second color of the "color" checker
color3: first color of the "transparency" checker
color4: second color of the "transparency" checker

the "color" checkers outcolor goes to color of the lambert (test_surface) and this is the surface shader of the test shading group (testSG).

the "transparency" checker connects to the transparency of test_surface.

important to note that both checkers share the same 2d placement (checker2D) this is so the color3 image controls the transparency of color1 and color4 controls color2 - this way you mess with only one placement to rotate the checker e.g.

that the files all share the same placement is only a habit of me. i dont like 100,000.00 things in my file. so unless i have to use 2 placements as one only takes part of the image, i merge them.

this should help you to set up a shading network where a checker has different transparency in both checker colors.

yeah of course it might go easier, if you want the 1st color and 1st transparency the same, just merge the file textures together or leave a color in the checker and assign a color instead of a connection ...

# 10 06-12-2002 , 08:56 PM
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Wow. To a newbie at shaders, that's one hell of a shader. Thanks a lot for everything.

I do have a few questions though. 1. Where do you come up with the swatches? I have never seen "color 1" swatch or "file_2D." Where are you coming up with these things? Also, it looks like the finished product is a yellow and blue checker texture that is transparent. Why wouldn't you just create a checker, change the transparency, then modify color 1 and 2. That could all be done without creating swatch and after swatch it seems. You see, what I want, is for color one to be tranparent and color two to be solid. If you create a sphere, r-click it, go to Materials>assign new material>phonge, click the checker box next to "color", assign a checker texture to it, then open the "color" tab in the window that pops up, You can see color one and two. I want one to stay solid black and the other to be transparent. Yours looks like the whole thing is slightly transparent.

# 11 06-12-2002 , 09:15 PM
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i did not only give you the answer. mine is more than you asked for. you have full control of the color and transparency.

the color1 ....4 are all file textures. i only made some uniformly colored files, but they could be the pic of your grandma.

if you only want color one solid and color 2 50% transparent, you leave all as is, and delete the 2 connection of the "transparenc" named checker. and apply black to 1st color, and 50% grey to 2nd color.

but what you can do with my solution is replace one file texture with noise, and you have solid color 1 and noisy transparent color 2 in the checker ....

any more questions?

# 12 06-12-2002 , 09:25 PM
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One more. Where can you find the Test SG swatch?

Other than that thanks a lot. You have been a big help. I really appreciate it all!

# 13 06-12-2002 , 09:26 PM
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oh, some addition. i understood your problem then you could have 2 different colors in the checker but not 2 different transparency settings. you could mix 2 materials in the checker, but that is not a good thing to do. mix the textures before you create a material. and having a checker that has 2 colors and 2 other values for transparency is not possible with one checker. so i showed you how to use 2 checkers. and the result is all transparent, because i used 4 colors that are all other than black. actually i painted them in photoshop and checked every pixel so it had the same color user added image

# 14 06-12-2002 , 09:27 PM
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Originally posted by Darkware
One more. Where can you find the Test SG swatch?

Other than that thanks a lot. You have been a big help. I really appreciate it all!

the shading group you normally dont see. and dont need it. but you can see it when you select the lambert and right click -> graph -> input/output connections

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