Introduction to Maya - Rendering in Arnold
This course will look at the fundamentals of rendering in Arnold. We'll go through the different light types available, cameras, shaders, Arnold's render settings and finally how to split an image into render passes (AOV's), before we then reassemble it i
# 1 22-04-2014 , 11:25 AM
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CURRENT PROJECTS

So I decided to post some of the projects that we are currently working on. As it has been a while since I posted anything on Simplymaya.

Here is a product visualization for body lotion being released soon into the Kenyan market. The target audience for this product is 18-25.Anyway so here are the sample images

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Last edited by murambi; 22-04-2014 at 11:27 AM.
# 2 25-04-2014 , 08:15 PM
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Here is the final Product

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# 3 27-04-2014 , 04:05 AM
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I think the second render was more on track with the plain background, a more gradual bend and soft shadows would eliminate the lines cutting through the shot. The backplate is distracting and seems to have resolution issues.


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# 4 28-04-2014 , 02:47 PM
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think I would agree with Gen, on all her points. The background is very strong, especially with that bright sunlight on the left.

The ones without the background leave you in no doubt what the subject and focus of the image is.
also think maybe the shadows could be slightly lighter, where you have them, in the standalone shots.




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# 5 28-04-2014 , 03:11 PM
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Yeah I agree the background looks abit dodgy will work on it abit more

# 6 29-04-2014 , 03:01 AM
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You could try a studio lighting rig with FG. In this case, the products are sitting in a poly sphere with a semi flattened bottom that curves gradually. A ramp is plugged into sphere shader's reflectivity so only the area immediately around the products is reflective, avoiding causing reflections issues with the lights. Two visible area lights, one soft spotlight hitting the wall directly behind the products for the halo effect and one poly plane behind the camera with a luminous shader acting as a light card(mia_light surface, refl contribution but no FG contribution).

The halo spotlight of course is open to being textured for more interesting shapes(heart, starburst whatever) and a rim light could help as well. I'm always using a linear lighting workflow, so all materials are gamma corrected mia_mats, all lights have quadratic falloff and image is tonemapped(I prefer the mia_photographic exposure to the Render View color management options). Then you could soften it up a bit and add some lens effects in your comp package etc.
user added image


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# 7 29-04-2014 , 11:54 AM
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That's a nice studio setup, thanks for sharing it.
Q. What is the difference between a mia_light surface and just using a surface shader with the out colour set to white?

# 8 29-04-2014 , 01:54 PM
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Wow, that is nice!

Gen, do you think such a set up would work on my ford ka model?




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Last edited by ben hobden; 29-04-2014 at 04:48 PM.
# 9 29-04-2014 , 10:42 PM
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@ Toddster

In a case like this where an offscreen, flat light card is all I needed they could look identical(surface shader does not show in incandescence passes so if this were a visible light bulb that would be a problem). Overall the mia_light_surface allows for more control with less hassle, like in this case, I told it to only contribute to reflections and not to FG since I felt it would just throw the lighting off, surface shader has no option for that. You can also retain actual surface shading while having some self illumination by balancing the diffuse/additional color weights, the surface shader is flat all day everyday. Then there is the ability to link lights to the shader to control it's intensity, which is a huge boon if light intensities are animated, if not then it's one less attribute that needs to be adjusted constantly anyway. The surface shader could do this but it would require some expressions.

@ Ben Hobden

Yes, I can't see why not, it serves as a general base that you can build on. In the case of a car, I think you might end up using more light cards (overhead ones too) since there are more contours to highlight. Give it a go!user added image


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# 10 01-05-2014 , 06:25 PM
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I sometimes forget how you are a lighting guru

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