Get halfway through a model and find it's an unworkable mess? Can't add edge loops where you need them? Can't subdivide a mesh properly? If any of this sounds familiar check this course out.
Is it possible to rerder an area which is contained/enclosed within a cube.
Example: I have a building with 5 stories and need to render stages where each stage reveals a different level within the building - now if I could place a volume and render only what is inside and then move it and render another area - This would be great !
Imagine you have a 5 levels building and you want to show the 3rd level in isometric view without having to cut the building to slices - which is possible but takes a lot of time to do (which is exactly what I have done in this case...!).
In Revit , for example - there is a way to show the modeler only what is enclosed within a user defined box so you may work easily on this area and later - reveal the rest.
As far as I know what you're trying to do does not exist in Maya. However, this is a total hack but it could work.
Try making some layered shaders with the shaders you're using as the base layer, and a new shader above them that uses a projection map to blast transparancy accross the terrain. Then you could move the projection node up and down to render each level.
OK, so my description sucks, but I think it should work. Let me know if you need more help and if I have time I'll put together an example.
I think this is what you wanted. In group1, try moving the node "place3dTexture" up and down and see how the different levels get cut away. If you want to use the node to show levels rather than hide them you can change the ramp color to black and set the ramp default color (under color balance) to white.
Also, check out "group2" (hide group1). In this case, the 2 place3texture nodes combine to make a box "render zone" if you will.