August 24, 2017 Workshop 2 Notes
Lighting and NURBS Surfaces
PART I: LIGHTING
Create a simple Nurbs sphere from the "Surfaces" shelf tool.
Add spot light
Go into lighting mode by hitting #7 key
With the spot light selected, to the top of the screen menu item "Modify/Transformation Tools/Show Manipulator Tool"
Move the source of the spot light above and to the right of the sphere, and move the target of the spot light to an area just below the sphere.
With the spot light selected, open the attributes editor (third icon from upper right-hand corner of Maya window) and resize the "cone angle" until it visibly impacts sphere
Within the attributes editor, turn on ray-trace shadows for the spot light.
Add two point source lights without shadows for fill and back-fill light
Use Show manipulator tool to reposition the point lights (target and source)
PART II: NURBS SURFACES
1. SURFACE OF REVOLUTION
Goto Front View
Create/CP Curve tool
Goto Perspective View
Surfaces/Revolve – select control box, pick “Y” axis, and # degrees.
CV Curve-Tool (control vertex NURBS curve) – perhaps more replicable due to less idiosyncratic control points. (higher degree is smoother --- largest exponent in polynomial equation used to represent the curve)
EP Curve Tool (free-hand pencil NURBS curve – 1 degree creates polygon straight lines)
2. LOFTING A SURFACE
Go to elevation view
Create two CV Curves in elelvation
Goto Perspective view
Move one curve along Y axis.
Pre-select both curves
Surfaces/loft – select control box – increase section spans to 5 – apply to curves
De-select geometry
Select curve
Move curve (transforms surface associated with it)
Right-click on curve and select control vertex
Isolate control vertex with selection tool [note gravitational pull on curves]
Move curve vertex with mouse and surface automatically updates.
3. MODIFYING A PLANAR SURFACE
Create/Nurbs Primitives/Plane
Stretch the plane.
Change the number of divisions in the channels box (30 x 30)
Right-click on plan and select control-vertex
Use selection tool to select a control-vertex or several of them.
Use the move tool to move them thereby reshaping surface
[Optional: Key frame Control Vertices directly in two locations at two frame numbers for animation]
4. PROJECTING CURVE ON A SURFACE
Create a surface of revolution (or use one from part 1 above)
Goto Front View Create a straight edge (EP Curve from two points)
Edit Nurbs/Project Curve on Surface (- select control box, use View direction –
Edit Nurbs/Trim Tool - select surface, select part to delete
5. SCULPTING A FLAT SURFACE [SKIPPED THIS EXAMPLE IN WORKSHOP]
Create/NURBS PRIMITIVES/Plane
Select Edit NURBS Sculpt tools with box.
Hit “reset” button to set all parameters to standard default values.
Draw on Surface
Hold “b” key to reset size
Change maximum displacement option
6. SETUP FOR SCULPTING A NURBS SPHERE
Create/NURBS PRIMITIVES/Sphere
Select #3 to increase density of mesh
INCREASE DENSITY OF SURFACE
Technique 1.
Select channels box for sphere.
Increase “sections” and “spans” to increase number of CVs (under MakeNurbSphere1)
Technique 2
Select Edit NURBS – Rebuild Surfaces []
Set number of spans u – 30
Set number of spans v – 30
Click rebuild
From left side of application window, open hypershade/perspective view of model (creates two view windows side by side).
Select blinn1 shader, change color to pink
Apply pink color to sphere
Set eccentricity to 0 to create strong highlight
Space-bar on perspective window to revert back to single perspective view.
7. BEGIN SCULPTING NURBS SPHERE
Select Edit NURBS Sculpt tools with box.
Hit “reset” button.
Under stamp profile: Set Radius(U) to 0.3
Under Sculpt variables: Set Max Displacement to 0.8
Mouse over surface, arrow indicates magnitude of displacement
Click and drag mouse on surface to begin sculpting it.
CHANGE DISPLAY TO SHADER (#5 KEY)
Do a second sculpting stroke and note simplicity of seeing result.
SCULPTING TOOLS
Select pull tool: pull on other side of ball
Select smooth tool; chance Radius (U) to 0.6 : smooth areas of ball
Select erase tool; erase some areas on ball
Hit flood button: erases all changes
Under stamp profile: Set Radius(U) to 0.5
Under Sculpt variables: Set Max Displacement to 0.5
Make two strokes over one another: each enhances effect until Maximum displacement is reached.
PART III: MOVIE EXPORT OPTIONS
Go to Setup in Render Globals
In Common Tab
Establish file type and extension (name#.jpg)
Determine numerical frame sequence to render
Image Size (default is 640 x 480 pixels).
In Maya Software Tab
Control Quality.
Turn on Raytracing
Edit project folder and note name of Image Folder (render)
Go to Quicktime Pro, load individual frames at 30 fps and save to mov format (similar to workshop 1). (May not do this in workshop, depending upon time available.).
PART IV: QUICKTIME EDITING, FILE FORMATS, CODECS
Quicktime Editing and Compiling. Workshop is based upon the following password protected * quicktime docs:
1. Import Image Sequence (p. 28)
2. Exporting Movie (p. 43 - 45)
3. Exporting to Mpeg 4 (p. 48)
* You can access these documents from any location on grounds or through VPN access through off grounds.