Wire frame render in Maya

                                       Wire frame render in Maya     

Wire frame rendering is just a way to show the wire frame and topology of your mesh. For this we have to use wire frame render. In Maya you can do this in number of ways. Like vector render, toon shader, mental ray etc. we are going to bake A.O and wire frame together. For this we are using mental ray and ambient occlusion.

Step 1: Create a project folder for your project. Here we have a 3d model in our scene. Now go to render settings and select mental ray as renderer.  If it’s not showing than go to plug in manager and load from there.

  

Step 2: Open hyper shade and select a lambert  shader. Assign this lambert shader to the selected object.

Step 3: Again in hyper shade select surface shader and mib_ambient_occlusion. For mib_ambient_occlusion we have to go under mental ray tab and click on textures and select mib_amb_occlusion. This will help us to get ambient occlusion effect on our geometry.

Step 4: Now connect this mib_amb_occlusion to surface shader as a default. Here we check the sample rays and spread values for our occlusion. Adjust according to your need. 

Step5: Now we are going to connect this surface shader under lambert shaders color node. It will open the connection editor. Here we are going to connect out color of surface shader to color of lambert shader.

Step6: Now select lambert shader and go to its shading group. Here go to mental ray tab and open contours. Now check enable contour rendering. Adjust the line width and line color form here.

Step7: In render settings go to features and open contours. Here check enable contour rendering. Under the draw by property difference tab check around all poly faces. Just render once to see the result. Open mib_amb_occlusion  by double clicking on it. And set ambient occlusion settings like sample rays and spread etc. render again to see the final result.

 

Baking Ambient Occlusion map in Maya

                                   Baking ambient occlusion map in Maya

We are here to discuss about ambient occlusion map. If we want to give more details to our scene than ambient occlusion map can help us. Ambient occlusion map gives more depth to our scene. Baking ambient occlusion map is simple and easy. We are going to bake ambient occlusion map with the help of mental ray.

Step1: Create a model and unwrap it. When we are going to bake ambient occlusion map than we have to keep one thing in our mind is that overlapping of UV's is not allowed here. We have to avoid overlapping of UV's. If you don’t do this your A.O map will not be accurate.

Step 2: Now go to render settings and select mental ray. If mental ray is not showing in render settings than load it form plug in manager. For this go to windows and select plug in manager it will open a dialog box. Now choose Maya to mr.mll and click ok. Again go to render settings and choose mental ray as renderer.

Step 3: In rendering menu set go to windows than rendering option and select hyper shade. Choose surface shader here. Now click to texture under mental ray tab and select mib_amb_occlussion. In work area select mib_amb_occlussion texture and with the help of middle mouse drag and drop on to the surface shader and connect to default.

Step 4: Now apply this shader to the selected objects. It will make all the objects black coz surface shader has no color. Render the scene you will get some noisy image like this (image 3).

                                                                                  (1)

(2)

                                                                          (3)

Step 5: let’s see how our A.O map looks. For this we have to check the quality and adjust few settings. First adjust the sample rays to reduce the noise. Adjust the spread amount. This is the parameter from which you can control the width of your occlusion. normally at spread value of .75 is good. If you required than use max distance. No need to change this right now.

Step 6: Now we are ready to bake our A.O map. For this choose rendering menu set and under the lighting and texturing tab select batch bake mental ray. It will open a dialog box.

Step 7: In this dialog box just feed the details like objects to bake, bake shadow's, use bake set override, color mode, occlusion rays, prefix, file format and seam etc.

Step 8: click convert and close. A.O map is baked and save under the mental ray folder. To see A.O map go to project folder than metal ray and here go inside light map.

This is our baked A.O map

Step 9: Now we have to use our A.O. map. For this open this A.O map in Photoshop and place this layer on top of the color map in multiply mode. It’s very important to put this layer in multiply mode. Now you can see the depth in your color map. Apply this to your object and render.

                                               Left without using A.O and right side with A.O

How to create a new toolbar in 3ds-Max

How to create a new toolbar in 3ds-Max

Sometimes we want some commands to be seen in front of our eyes so that we can pick that commands quickly. We cannot create hot key for each and every tool or command. Than we have to look for other options. And other option is to create our own toolbar so that we can add commands according to our choice. Default toolbar is not set according to our choice. There are lots of commands which we use on regular basis but they are not in our default toolbar. For better workflow and speed we have to use both hotkeys and our own customize toolbar.

Step 1:-First go to customize option in menu bar and select customize user interface. It will open a dialog box. Here you can see lots of things to customize. You can create keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, menus, color etc. our aim is to create a new toolbar.

Step 2:-Select any toolbar and you will see the details related to it. You can see all available toolbars here. Click one by one and see different toolbars. We can create a new toolbar, delete an existing toolbar or rename a toolbar here. We are going to create a new toolbar.

Step 3:-Click on new it will create a new floating toolbar in viewport. Give a name to your new toolbar and click ok.

Step 4:-Now you can place your toolbar very easily in the interface. Just double click on it. When you double click on your new toolbar it will automatically place itself in the interface. If you want to place manually than click and hold with the left mouse button and place anywhere in main toolbar.

Step 5:-Now we are ready to add commands to our toolbar. For this we have to choose any group. For this again go to customize and select customize user interface.  Now here select any group like editable poly etc.

Step 6:- Here in action box choose the command which you want to add in your toolbar. Now just drag and drop in our toolbar. You can see commands in your toolbar. If you want to delete any command form your toolbar than just right click on that command button and click delete.

double click on your toolbar to see it  to see your toolbar

if you want to delete any command than just right and choose delete.