Creating Shader Networks in Maya and Mental Ray with Exercise Files (2013)

Creating Shader Networks in Maya and Mental Ray with Exercise Files (2013)
with Aaron F. Ross

Dive deep into the Hypershade window and shader creation with Maya and the mental ray rendering engine. In this course, author Aaron F. Ross shows how to create materials and shaders for 3D objects, characters, and landscapes, with reflectivity, transparency, and amazing texture. Become more comfortable building shader networks and open up a lot of new possibilities for creative surfaces in Maya.

Topics include:

    Getting familiar with Hypershade
    Making and breaking connections
    Using mental ray materials
    Adding reflectivity with ray tracing
    Rendering refractions
    Mapping translucence
    Adding surface relief detail
    Adjusting and combining textures
    Constructing a stylized non-photoreal shader
    Working with math and utility nodes
    Rendering ink and paint with Maya Toon

Introduction 4m 50s
Welcome 1m 3s
Setting up the course project 3m 47s
1. Hypershade Interface and Workflows 53m 38s
Creating a reference to save disk space 5m 36s
Getting familiar with the Hypershade 2m 47s
Creating shading nodes 6m 7s
Using the Hypershade with the Attribute Editor 5m 30s
Setting viewport render options 6m 16s
Using the Render view 6m 57s
Graphing networks 4m 26s
Understanding shading groups 3m 45s
Making and breaking connections 4m 23s
Using the Connection Editor 4m 27s
Organizing material libraries with bins 3m 24s
2. Essential Techniques 41m 38s
Introducing the Node Editor 3m 17s
Creating a matte painting with the surface shader 5m 44s
Controlling hardware texture quality 1m 26s
Lighting the scene 6m 31s
Choosing a diffuse color and amount 2m 42s
Understanding ambient color 1m 39s
Bump mapping 3m 7s
3D texture placement 1m 31s
Defining specular shading 4m 26s
Duplicating networks 3m 31s
Building branching networks 5m 56s
Exporting and importing networks 1m 48s
3. mental ray Materials 33m 31s
Setting up the mental ray renderer 2m 15s
Lighting the scene for mental ray 5m 20s
Using mental ray shading nodes 4m 41s
Choosing mia_material_x presets 3m 23s
Exploring mia_material_x 3m 51s
Bump mapping in mia_material_x 2m 43s
Adding ambient occlusion to mia_material_x 5m 50s
Using ambient occlusion nodes in shader trees 5m 28s
4. Glossy and Reflective Surfaces 23m 9s
Mapping specular color 3m 37s
Adding reflectivity with raytracing 3m 11s
Setting raytracing depth 3m 14s
Shaping anisotropic highlights 3m 58s
Creating brushed metal with a bump map 4m 2s
Controlling the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) 5m 7s
5. Transparency and Translucence 34m 27s
Rendering refractions 3m 39s
Finding the facing ratio with Sampler Info 3m 42s
Modifying transparency with Remap Value 6m 13s
Rendering solid glass with mia_material_x 4m 32s
Backlighting materials with translucence 4m 26s
Mapping translucence 3m 40s
Rendering skin with subsurface scattering 8m 15s
6. Surface Relief 21m 48s
Adding detail with a displacement map 4m 11s
Controlling displacement tessellation 2m 45s
Working with Use Min Screen for camera-based displacement 2m 58s
Converting displacement to polygons 2m 7s
Normal mapping 3m 47s
Generating a normal map with Transfer Maps 6m 0s
7. Adjusting and Combining Textures 58m 23s
Filtering a file texture 4m 13s
Adjusting file texture color balance 2m 22s
Understanding 2D texture placement 3m 44s
Assigning materials by face component 1m 56s
Nesting maps 3m 59s
Compositing maps with a layered texture 3m 53s
Applying multiple UV sets 6m 34s
Compositing shaders 7m 19s
Driving ramp UVs with a texture 4m 29s
Modifying colors with Remap HSV 1m 41s
Building substance textures 7m 37s
Baking with Convert to File Texture 5m 22s
Baking with mental ray Batch Bake 5m 14s
8. Special Effects 40m 19s
Constructing a candle flame shader 4m 22s
Using Shader Glow 5m 22s
Adding OpticalFX 3m 56s
Building a nonphotoreal shading network 2m 10s
Creating an ideal diffuse shader 1m 18s
Creating a noisy ramp 1m 57s
Adding colors 3m 51s
Setting a threshold with Remap Value 5m 3s
Multiplying values 6m 40s
Adding Brownian noise 5m 40s
9. Maya Toon 15m 55s
Assigning a fill with a ramp shader 4m 41s
Assigning a Toon outline 2m 3s
Editing outline attributes in the pfxToon node 2m 59s
Manipulating outlines with a modifier 2m 39s
Converting Toon outlines to polygons 3m 33s
Conclusion 35s
Goodbye 35s

Author
    Aaron F. Ross
subject
    3D + Animation, Rendering, Textures, Materials, Visual Effects
software
    Maya 2013
level
    Intermediate

duration
    5h 28m
released
    Mar 01, 2013