Please help with bizarre rendering problem

# 1 24-05-2011 , 03:50 PM

Registered User
Join Date: May 2011

Posts: 3

Hi there,

first of all I am at an extremely basic level on Maya, in the process of learning the software. I am working on a project that requires a snail, so I got a royalty free snail online and loaded it into Maya. It looks great in the interface, but bizarre when rendered. I was wondering how I correct it. I just want it to look as it does before I click render!

before: user added image

after:

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It seems that it is the rounded ends of the antennae/eyes (whatever they are) that are being blown up. and then some!

Chris

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# 2 24-05-2011 , 04:28 PM

The thin red line
Join Date: Aug 2009

Location: England

Posts: 4,472

It looks to me like a displacement map, if you go to hypershade then click on the shader for the snail, above the there will be a box with two arrows both sides click on that will bring the shader nodes to the lower window, look for displacement click on that and on the right hand side of the screen in the attribute editor. change displacement from 1 to say .01(play with this).................dave

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# 3 24-05-2011 , 04:57 PM

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Join Date: May 2011

Posts: 3

It looks to me like a displacement map, if you go to hypershade then click on the shader for the snail, above the there will be a box with two arrows both sides click on that will bring the shader nodes to the lower window, look for displacement click on that and on the right hand side of the screen in the attribute editor. change displacement from 1 to say .01(play with this).................dave

Originally Posted by daverave

Cheers for the help, I tried this, it was indeed set to 1, but I got this message:

// Error: setAttr: The attribute 'displacementShader1.displacement' is locked or connected and cannot be modified.

can I get round this?

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# 4 24-05-2011 , 05:51 PM

The thin red line
Join Date: Aug 2009

Location: England

Posts: 4,472

Sorry
You need to go onto the file node,on the right hand side were the displacement is should be a tab above one shader you want the other one click on that go down to colour balance then down to alpha gain, reduce this say by a 3 quaters(play about).....dave

Edit:I think you can tell I dont use displacement much

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Last edited by daverave; 24-05-2011 at 05:57 PM.

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# 5 24-05-2011 , 08:09 PM

Registered User
Join Date: May 2011

Posts: 3

Sorry
You need to go onto the file node,on the right hand side were the displacement is should be a tab above one shader you want the other one click on that go down to colour balance then down to alpha gain, reduce this say by a 3 quaters(play about).....dave

Edit:I think you can tell I dont use displacement much

Originally Posted by daverave

you use it more than me! Thanks so much for your help!

If I have the alpha gain set at anything but 0 then I I dont get a smooth shell, it looks like this:

user added image

how can I smooth the shell out?

Cheers, I really appreciate your help

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# 6 24-05-2011 , 08:17 PM

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Join Date: Dec 2006

Location: South FL

Posts: 3,522

Along with tweaking the alpha gain on the texture you could assign an approximation node so the displacement doesn't look so crispy, crunchy and faceted. Select the model, go to Window>Rendering Editors>Mental Ray> Approximation Editor and under "Displacement Tesselation" just hit create then edit and choose a quality preset (especially if you're not yet familiar with the attributes).

- Genny
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