tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30282191754893838192024-03-04T23:10:59.602-08:00Lighting & Rendering tips and tricks.A repository for all things related to the advancements in 3D Lighting and rendering.faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-26382551054211927922013-04-02T01:38:00.000-07:002013-04-02T01:38:25.766-07:00Unified sampling in Maya and Mental ray<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A look at setting up unified sampling in Maya and Mental ray using string options.Have a look at this post before you watch the video to better understand the workflow.<br />
http://elementalray.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/unified-sampling/<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/63136710" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br /></div>
faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-17599705755765548532012-04-22T08:38:00.000-07:002012-04-22T08:39:26.319-07:00Linear workflow using Maya and Vray for Maya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Alright here's the second video on Linear workflow,this time using Maya and Vray for Maya.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/40809194" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe></div>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-83186885429754469022012-03-26T10:03:00.002-07:002012-03-26T10:06:47.453-07:00Linear Workflow in Maya and Mental ray 2012There's a lot of confusion on this subject so I made a video to explain the advantages of working linearly.<br /><br /> <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39092433" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-58076383990706094032011-07-17T08:51:00.000-07:002011-07-17T08:54:23.084-07:00Greetings and salutations!Hello folks its been a while I know but I promise to keep posting as often as possible from now on.I have uploaded all my videos on vimeo in HD so go on and check em out.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/25602388?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/25602388">3ds max basic spline modeling</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user6923170">Faizal Taher</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-33538329154745444092010-06-05T04:17:00.000-07:002010-06-05T04:19:59.154-07:00Compositing depth pass with After EffectsHere's another link for creating DOF with a depth pass in After Effects,I keep getting this question a lot but never got the time to write a tutorial on this.Hope this helps Cheers!<br /><br />http://www.bernardlebel.com/tutorials/AFX_depthPassDof/DOF.htmfaizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-17466756529958578922010-06-05T04:12:00.000-07:002010-06-05T04:15:27.525-07:00RGB light PassesHere's a link on creating and compositing RGB light passes,These passes can be used to change light colors as well as intensities without re-rendering the images.<br /><br />http://williework.blogspot.com/2008/12/technical-rgb-light-passes.htmlfaizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-79676007575243007942010-04-20T11:13:00.000-07:002010-04-20T11:22:19.033-07:00'shakin bakin'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbHmf8Xxx5-O7hlvW3_BFzoUQSne7PyCzUByWtM9UitvhoBXlhv1ygq8_dSGEK-WQEEzb8-qvCEsfGXntpHNbrxjZsnSUyt_cFg9M6lZ5YNI9hyphenhyphenstA0NFNp0Q9Vy6-nqZJCFIqJW07sCJm/s1600/mail+truck+comp.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbHmf8Xxx5-O7hlvW3_BFzoUQSne7PyCzUByWtM9UitvhoBXlhv1ygq8_dSGEK-WQEEzb8-qvCEsfGXntpHNbrxjZsnSUyt_cFg9M6lZ5YNI9hyphenhyphenstA0NFNp0Q9Vy6-nqZJCFIqJW07sCJm/s400/mail+truck+comp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462285928293503362" border="0" /></a><br />Here's something I did a long time ago,thought I'd recomp it in shake.The original was done with maya and combustion and I was not able to find the file because my old machine was sadly formatted by some jack ass:-(.I lost some of my old files but it actually gave a chance to work on shake..Too bad shake's days are counted and I dont know how long its going to be around.Hope it stays on at least for a little longer.<br /><br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4tMM-UT_w4UoM5WxJ3-agBunLILncJUrfreoW8krg5hZbHrhej_AJhHKClkuvjwRiJqnUVGUAtkD2OhN0lZ7AoOsi4QUT937KJ8_J4zQLrVL6cZbbd0ldBjrmtuU9yc4qwjZAvkQuZMq/s1600/mail_truck_comp0001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4tMM-UT_w4UoM5WxJ3-agBunLILncJUrfreoW8krg5hZbHrhej_AJhHKClkuvjwRiJqnUVGUAtkD2OhN0lZ7AoOsi4QUT937KJ8_J4zQLrVL6cZbbd0ldBjrmtuU9yc4qwjZAvkQuZMq/s400/mail_truck_comp0001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462286121654045442" border="0" /></a> Here's the render from shake.faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-43898461367847202522009-10-18T00:54:00.000-07:002009-10-19T05:54:55.311-07:00SlimHere's an attempt to create a simple Ice shader with slim.I got it to look the way I wanted..I started with an ensemble and attached a glass template with a basic displacement with do displacement unchecked along with a turbulence and some fog and smoke for the atmosphere.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1EYqDN9sbg1YPhton7t0Ry7WZS3-smc_nfQdxvJUqdDfSKH9T6Pm7zeIF3Jen6_TLzYHO7svEoA3gX1HMnZIW-mrXk1rpaHI_CSSXwL9S8RMMbZx-qan3h7lB7KcoL9F19eDKWEim4OyE/s1600-h/slim_palette.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1EYqDN9sbg1YPhton7t0Ry7WZS3-smc_nfQdxvJUqdDfSKH9T6Pm7zeIF3Jen6_TLzYHO7svEoA3gX1HMnZIW-mrXk1rpaHI_CSSXwL9S8RMMbZx-qan3h7lB7KcoL9F19eDKWEim4OyE/s320/slim_palette.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393846189122194754" border="0" /></a>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-87997586974957832752009-09-26T00:10:00.001-07:002012-03-26T10:10:12.491-07:00Demystifying mia portal lightHello everyone in this tutorial I have discussed mia portal light in maya.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23275030" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe><br /></div>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-69134368087785426732009-08-19T06:01:00.000-07:002009-08-19T06:05:43.662-07:00Linear workflow??This one is for those of you who are still wondering what linear workflow is and want to know more about it then check out this http://www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/lwf/main.html. some really neat examples to get you up and running with linear space workflow.faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-54887506634817283612009-08-19T05:49:00.000-07:002009-08-19T05:59:08.890-07:00Mental ray Production shaders in mayaGreetings and apologies for not posting regularly as promised here.Been quite busy with a lot of things lately,anyways has anyone heard of the production shaders for mental ray?these gems ship with both max,maya and XSI but are hidden for various reasons.master zap has done a pretty good job explaining these in this PDF document on the mental images website http://www.mentalimages.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/production.pdf<br /> these shaders basically help you in integration of CG objects in a live action plate.Also check http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/10/production-shader-examples.html.leave a comment if you still need any help with these.faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-62821019995970739782009-07-05T11:09:00.001-07:002012-03-26T10:13:13.554-07:00Rendering Zbrush displacements with Renderman for Maya.Hey everyone here's another video I made for all you Zbrush users who have had a tough time figuring out how to take all the sculpted details back to maya.In this tutorial I have explained both the Zbrush and Maya parts, so everything from exporting the displacements with the displacement exporter 3 in Zbrush to setting up the maya scene and shader network to render using renderman 2.0.Why am I using Renderman for this?why not mental ray?well because renderman is a Reyes renderer(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reyes_rendering)so displacements are blazing fast to render using Renderman.That dosen't mean you cannot render displacements with mental ray,actually the mental displacements are quite good but it takes a little longer to setup and renders are surprisingly fast too,but thats a totally different story:-)<br /><br /> <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/25590647" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-39295784276204989862009-07-04T11:42:00.001-07:002012-03-26T10:14:42.786-07:00Mental ray physical sun and sky in 3ds max 2009Here's my first video post for you guys,I have discussed the physical sun and sky in 3ds max 2009 in detail here.For all you maya users this will be useful for you because all the parameters are also similar in maya.If you are using firefox I recommend downloading the video with download helper plugin for firefox or any other flv download manager,then you can play it with the vlc player.<br /><br /> <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26584950" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe><br /><br /><br />Here's the second video for the physical sun and sky.<br /><br /> <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23273711" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" width="400"></iframe>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028219175489383819.post-71415060524565071942008-09-05T10:23:00.000-07:002009-07-04T09:48:23.698-07:00RENDERING MULTIPLE PASSES USING MAYA'S RENDER LAYERSThe whole idea of this tutorial is to render your final image in multiple passes rather than rendering it as a whole by that i mean rendering it in layers of beauty,specular,reflection,shadow,zdepth etc.<br /><br />As this concept is so diverse in its nature we will not be able to delve too deep into it but will understand its importance and the flexibility it provides to the artist.<br /><br />So why bother rendering scenes in passes when we can just render them as a single pass?<br />well in a production environment wheather its an all CG animation or a combination of live action and CG elements, the need to render large and complex scenes in different passes becomes necessary.If all objects in the scene are rendered all at once the computer's memory could get overloaded and crash it.<br /><br />making changes in the scene becomes easy by just rendering the obects that require any correction without the need to render the whole scene again.<br /><br />For things like charecters and props which are animated over time in the foreground can be rendered as a sequence and if there is no camera animation in the shot the background can be rendered just as a single image.<br /><br />when working with live action plates and integrating CG charecters and objects it is necessary to render these in seperate passes so that if the charecters that are casting any shadows or appear in any reflections,having seperate passes of these helps integrate them seamlessly with the plate shot.<br /><br />Adding effects like glows,depth of field,motion blur or just doing some color correction becomes easy without depending on doing theses in a 3D package like maya where they are render expensive.<br /><br />Maya's render layers provide an easy and efficient workflow in creating multiple render passes which can later be composited togeather in compositing applications like aftereffects,combustion,Digital fusion,shake,nuke or the very awesome photoshop if the image is going to be a still.<br /><br />So lets get started with a simple example here,when iam done lighting the scene i start creating the render layers depending on the passes I require.<br />I have a very simple scene here with a tyre which is being lit by a directional light casting a raytraced shadow with the default settings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOG8ygaQsiZ1rUaR5F_90j8GsvCkUsusfHHiUQe5h-rGSQKFw9iA9Apke0tuNCYvghBdMTXMia2l36xz7imPabHFqXnogB7QJI52GQKBmyt-MCjMrnZsC0QZoDXfbhDUFgBjTQAkQssLOB/s1600-h/tyre_beauty.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 323px; height: 177px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOG8ygaQsiZ1rUaR5F_90j8GsvCkUsusfHHiUQe5h-rGSQKFw9iA9Apke0tuNCYvghBdMTXMia2l36xz7imPabHFqXnogB7QJI52GQKBmyt-MCjMrnZsC0QZoDXfbhDUFgBjTQAkQssLOB/s320/tyre_beauty.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242596382259450674" border="0" /></a>The first pass i will be creating is going to be the Beauty pass and guess what you have just rendered it.the pass that contains all the the elements such as diffuse,ambient and specular etc. is called a beauty pass,only thing i would need to do is to not include the shadow which is being cast on to the plane here.Iam going to create a seperate pass for it.Having said that i could also render the plane seperately so that i can have more control in the composite.<br /><br />I start off by toggling the layer button to render layers then selecting all the objects in the scene the plane,tyre and the light and click on the second button which creates a layer with the selcted objects I rename this layer as beauty pass.All you need to do here is to go into the attributes of the directional light and uncheck the use raytraced shadows option,when you do this the attribute turns orange indicating a layer override.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd_C9QNVu47RYP-1LlOuCl8nX9sOqCWpbsMmnU-TgmfgbFDQBhHjrmnefbM4QdRq4aiVbZCyEMaCw3xthXdknzKRR7T9VwwoxzXHdnpd_ANO6NxK6csv489SFzrheSla-sIRs_XJZy69y/s1600-h/cap_1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd_C9QNVu47RYP-1LlOuCl8nX9sOqCWpbsMmnU-TgmfgbFDQBhHjrmnefbM4QdRq4aiVbZCyEMaCw3xthXdknzKRR7T9VwwoxzXHdnpd_ANO6NxK6csv489SFzrheSla-sIRs_XJZy69y/s320/cap_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242604022413065554" border="0" /></a><br />and thats it the beauty layer is done,now its time to create the ambient occlusion pass and for this I select just the tyre and the plane and click on the second button in the render layers section because the light is not required for this I will not include it in this pass.To create the occlusion pass just right click on the layer and from the presets select occlusion. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcSzB5bCv2I9ksoHg28fvhzdYxo5s63g-dmqXovN93Fg_D0KQxlu6Z-ZGw1QE2jBpDZ2RhqVvYQ7QaCRQnImrYSmK7h3XCpoFoO5CqMXwNVPzHNEkPV84BAg36Xqbpc4fTMXlsp0CIG1x/s1600-h/cap_2occ.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcSzB5bCv2I9ksoHg28fvhzdYxo5s63g-dmqXovN93Fg_D0KQxlu6Z-ZGw1QE2jBpDZ2RhqVvYQ7QaCRQnImrYSmK7h3XCpoFoO5CqMXwNVPzHNEkPV84BAg36Xqbpc4fTMXlsp0CIG1x/s320/cap_2occ.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242612701721431746" border="0" /></a><br />To change the setting on the occlusion pass you can click on the blue ball icon in the render layer to open up the attributes of the surface shader to which the ambient occlusion texture node is connected.click on the input of the out color to expose the occlusion parameters,the samples parameter takes care of the total number of occlusion rays in the scene.you can use 32 rays for this to get good results.The other I would like to change is the max distance which is set to 0 by default,this means maya will calculate the max distance to be occluded.This parameter works in terms of maya's units,i.e. if you put 1 here it means 1 maya's grid unit.You can give anything between 2 to 5 here to get good results,so that it will only occlude the specified number of units that you have set.Doing this will also speed up my render time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemyjsTxBD6RuRfactjMBRXOeUNw779FJLLFiy-nLXGkTb3vScLRVTC6Gt2DpPvxunuBrZldZ78HnXg6Gv-D1voWPAReFeS3ipw7AT6p6WH3hyvTOdlYPYdMYhT5RLopybB_6Qqr74qpKW/s1600-h/Occlusion_settings.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemyjsTxBD6RuRfactjMBRXOeUNw779FJLLFiy-nLXGkTb3vScLRVTC6Gt2DpPvxunuBrZldZ78HnXg6Gv-D1voWPAReFeS3ipw7AT6p6WH3hyvTOdlYPYdMYhT5RLopybB_6Qqr74qpKW/s320/Occlusion_settings.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354603826744493682" border="0" /></a>Iam going to create the diffuse pass now,this pass will contain only the diffuse component in the rendered image.I will create another render layer by selecting everything again from the master layer.I will rename this layer to diffuse,right click on it and from the presets choose diffuse.If you render this layer you should see something as the following image below.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2erXnp2ase1tHfDZpLZuVBMaVssiwKETCjPIwAnMu7RB1RHQwieKWoihf23kGCYj-Fqj0DJr7c57BRQyRO4VWTvzzd4GHeodkrcxIqtD-edDyUR39X5NIFK_wR5fIee4lOfERz37dHn9/s1600-h/diffuse_settings+copy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2erXnp2ase1tHfDZpLZuVBMaVssiwKETCjPIwAnMu7RB1RHQwieKWoihf23kGCYj-Fqj0DJr7c57BRQyRO4VWTvzzd4GHeodkrcxIqtD-edDyUR39X5NIFK_wR5fIee4lOfERz37dHn9/s320/diffuse_settings+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354607285240618946" border="0" /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></a> If you click on the flag icon on the render layer of the diffuse pass you can see the diffuse option checked in the render pass section of the attributes.This is another way of creating the passes.<br /><br />Now its time to create the ambient pass,If you have noticed there is no preset available in maya to create this pass.The ambient pass can be easily created by selecting the geometry and creating another render layer,this time Iam not going to include the light in this layer.Iam actually going to create a new ambient light into this layer.In the ambient light Iam going to set the ambient shade to 0.I also need to override the reflection parameter from the tire so that the reflections are not included in the pass.so select the tyre and go into the attributes editor>tire shape>render stats unckeck the visible in reflections and visible in refractions options.Do the same for the plane.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCwY_aYTJffNVhgEZ6qn0aw43WEnvuKEDOk3YE8higGEX3Lbm8kfUVEXyppFpEdGV-qOJKKe9y8NwVJWEVc4Q8UthcwvmJb1chdUWo4IYRSN_3AvBFFlNLDjkWco3E8ncEys29Vf6mslQ/s1600-h/ambient_settings.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCwY_aYTJffNVhgEZ6qn0aw43WEnvuKEDOk3YE8higGEX3Lbm8kfUVEXyppFpEdGV-qOJKKe9y8NwVJWEVc4Q8UthcwvmJb1chdUWo4IYRSN_3AvBFFlNLDjkWco3E8ncEys29Vf6mslQ/s320/ambient_settings.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354647344682347282" border="0" /></a><br /><br />contd.<br /><br /></div>faizmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15338884173997926090noreply@blogger.com2