Week 4: Texturing

Did that get your attention? I know this stuff can be a little dry at times so just to keep up attention levels..ha. I could use one of those about now. That's a real pic above, by the way. First rule of Fight Club is...always use lots of reference photos when creating 3d!

Another hot week in L.A. But no humidity makes it feel waaaaaay cooler than Tokyo's summer which should be feeling like a sauna about now. I kind of miss a cloudy or rainy day sometimes. Maybe I could get them to throw one of those in here and there. Anyway...

This week we had Steve McClure back and he showed us texturing in Maya and learning the Hypershade, Maya's material creation editor. It's all node-based which is cool cause it's so flexible - you can create any material imaginable. But that power comes at a price. It's a bit daunting at first, but after you understand the basics, the learning curve goes pretty fast - and it's pretty fun.

Anisotropic reflections. What? you know, it's that long highlight you see on brushed metals, hair, CDs, etc. All it means is an elongated highlight or reflection caused by different surface pattern in opposite directions on a surface. Some examples of causes are the small grooves (in brushed metal) or hair strands (in..uh, hair).


We started with a brushed metal example, a stainless-steel faucet. Also learned the 3d paint tool which was cool cause you can acually paint in 3d on the object, which is how I did the rust.


We also did some other basic metal shaders, like copper and bronze. Then played around with using layered shaders to create a patina on the bronze. Note the reflection pattern on the bottom of a copper pan also anisotropic.


We also learned about creating iridescent materials-like a cetain bugs or pearls for example. It's how the color changes on an object based on the viewing angle.


We created our material on a bug model. It's pretty psychedelic, huh? Reminds me of car paint...ha. Check out the render below to see the color shifting on the bug based on the viewing angle.


After that we moved on to making Photoshop layered materials and using them inside Maya. The workflow is really nice cause you can make all your layers for color, bump, diffuse, etc..in photoshop, import it, and Maya knows how to apply everything. We created a grungy material for a 3d dumpster with many layers and then also camera matched it to this exisiting photo of an alley.


Little compositing and voila!


Last but not least, we wrapped up with one of the hardest 3d materials do well - glass. Glass we learned is all about 3 things - reflections, refractions, and transparency. Refractions just means how light gets 'bent' when passing through transparent objects, like a straw in a glass of water. Different objects have different refractive index value and so any objects seen though them look more or less distorted based on that number. Glass is around 1.5 and water is 1.33


Shiny objects like water, glass or metal also sometimes has a property called caustics, which is a focused light pattern in reflections. Can see this is a swimming pool that has light through it or in the reflection cast by a shiny ring.


Our challenge was to model, light and texture a beer glass with reflections, refractions and caustics. My shot at it below....


Bonus challenge was to fill it with beer. It's still very 3d looking and the foam sucks, but its late and I'm tired. Better foam to come on another day : /


Looking forward to next week which is my favorite - lighting and rendering. Enjoy a cold one in the meantime : )