Maya for 3D Printing - Rapid Prototyping
In this course we're going to look at something a little different, creating technically accurate 3D printed parts.
# 1 04-04-2005 , 07:02 AM
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Environment Map/Soft Shadows

This is kind of a combined question, not sure if it belongs in basics but whatever ^^;

I've been working with modeling for a while now and so I've got the hang of it, but recently started to discover the almost overwhelming importance of lighting. I've looked for tutorials, but there don't seem to be nearly as many as there should be, so hopefully someone here can help.

This is a Nissan 350z that I finished up a month or so ago:

user added image

Specifically in this case, what I want to know how to do is to create an environment map to reflect in this car's paint, and then how to light it so that I get the soft, realistic looking shadows that most professional work has. I'm happy with the modeling, but the reflections are just coming from white planes above the car and so they look boring. The shadow is just a directional light and looks really fake. I'd like to get the lighting/shadowing looking more like this:

user added image

Being the car that Robert Scott made for the tutorial that Simply Maya will be releasing (hope it's okay to use this image, it illustrates perfectly what I want to get).

Ideally I'd like to map an environment to a sphere surrounding the scene, so that everything reflects accurately (as opposed to applying an environment sphere shader or something to the material) but just don't know how to do it. As far as getting soft shadows I really am lost on lighting. Any help will be great!

- Jesse

# 2 04-04-2005 , 11:29 AM
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the two are separate issues but there is a very easy way. Get a hold of the environment spheres that paul devenbec released (i think that's how you spell his name) and assuming you have maya 6 and mental ray you can then just plug that in to the image based lighting slot in the render globals and render with final gather. that is the best place to start.

Alan


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# 3 04-04-2005 , 01:31 PM
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I'll try that, but as I'm still getting used to Mental Ray, is there a longer way to do it? I've done environment spheres for reflections in other programs but I'm not having luck in Maya yet.

Also still wondering on the soft shadows, thanks ^^;

- Jesse

# 4 04-04-2005 , 01:48 PM
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FG handles the soft shadows (or you can do it with a dome of spotlights casting low res shadow maps) do a search for global illumination. That is essentially what final gather is (but it uses raytracing).

look in the docs for "Simulate reflections with Env Ball" and you will see how to use the reflection balls.
Alan


Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

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