1. Create a NURBS surface and deform it a bit to get a nice-looking bumpy terrain.
Create a camera
2. Open the Hypershader. Create a Blinn node and edit it as shown below
I highlighted in red the attributes that need to be edited. Don’t forget the slight blueish Ambience, because snow is always a bit blue when in sunlight. Also add a light bump (on the example, I use the Turbulence texture, available in the highend3d.com library. Rename the blinn1 as snowBlinn.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

SSS simulates light scattering under the surface of an object. Done right, it can have very convincing effects on many materials such as skin, stone, milk, etc. The downside is that it can be very expensive to render and takes a bit of tweaking to get right. If SSS is too expensive, there are multiple ways to fake the effect.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

Not entirely unexpected, the fourth and last assignment for the 3D modelling course was to make an animation in Maya. When we first read the requirements, all kinds of wild ideas came up in our minds, most of which were unrealizable in the two weeks we had available. Two weeks we had to use to think of the subject of the animation, to learn how to make animations in Maya, to write this report and of course, to render the final result. Since both of us never made an animation in Maya before, we decided to work through a few tutorials first, trying the examples described and getting used to the animation interface. When we were able to find and use the most basic items for developing animations, we started to work on our final result.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

T his tutorial will explain how to export static textured models (meaning no animation yet) from Maya into Crysis. I’ll update this tutorial as I learn more about the process and more tools become available. Big thanks to Psychojohno and Spiderdan for their tutorials which taught me a lot!
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

Paint Effects is Maya’s flexible system for interactively painting brush strokes and particle effects on a 2D canvas or on 3D geometry. Preset brushes such as plants, hair, fire, feathers, and others can be used to get amazing effects quickly. This tutorial explains how to create a Maya logo out of growing grass. The focus is on setting and animating the Paint Effects brush and strokes.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This short tutorial implies that you know the basics of Maya. Please refer to the many available Maya Tutorials on the net on how to work with materials (textures) and how to apply them to objects. Just one quick tip: Many drag-and-drop operations in Maya are done with the middle mouse button. You can apply textures/materials to objects this way as well as moving materials from the upper window in the Hypershade Editor to the lower window in order to edit the material (right mouse button -> Graph).
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This document is intended to be a guide or a reference for those who, using Maya to create their characters, want to export them into the Quake III Arena engine. It’s based on our experience at the Virtual World of Art (VWA) where we wanted to create our own avatars for our environments, and reflects as well some particularities due to the specific needs of our project, that might not be the same of the average user willing to create boths for the game. We just use Quake III Arena as an engine for a very different context than what the game itself is about, but I think that it can be a useful reference nevertheless for those Quake III Arena enthusiasts that, using already Maya to model, texture and animate their characters, would like to see them fighting in Quake III Arena.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

In this tutorial you will learn how to use the alpha channel of your projected image to “stencil” your image over/under other images on your geometry with the use of a layered shader. first off build your self a nurbs sphere, make it look some thing like this:
(You don’t have to but it will look better!)
Open up your MultiLister and create a BlinnSG (Make sure Shading group is ticked).
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments