Powder/dust heap in Maya?

# 1 05-04-2011 , 08:56 PM

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Join Date: Mar 2011

Posts: 45

Hello members of simplymaya!

I am a just-beginning user in Maya, but I try to become better in it and 3D in general because I aspire to become a 3D artist user added image

Now, I have a question...I want to make a dust/powder heap in maya. I thought of just making a cone but it won't have all those tiny shadows I want...
I'd like it to be like this https://www.dreamstime.com/chili-powd...mb18431393.jpg, I'll be using the render in an assignment...

Any tutorial or step by step would be very awesome!

Thanks in advance!

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# 2 05-04-2011 , 09:14 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

I would use a bumpmap to generate the texture (shadows) of it. Create the pile geometry probably with a poly plane that you build up using the sculpt geometry tool (or a cone as you said). Next, apply a color texture as well as a noise texture (supplied by maya) for the bump map. I hope that gets you in the right direction.

-stwert

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# 3 05-04-2011 , 09:39 PM

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This worked really well!! But when I create an ambient light, to give it some world-related shades and highlights, the noise just disappears! (Btw I put most settings to max or min, to get a lot of extremes, and I used Perlin instead of Billow)

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# 4 05-04-2011 , 09:42 PM

The thin red line
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Try changing the bump map to a dislacement map, a bump map is only a effect a displacement changes the geo...........dave

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# 5 05-04-2011 , 09:43 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Yes, ambient lights don't display bump maps... don't use an ambient light. An ambient light will not give you shades or highlights either, it flattens everything out. Although there are many much more skilled lighters on these forums, I'd recommend using 3 directional lights, 1: key light with higher intensity 2: fill light with lower intensity to lighten up any strong shadows 3: rim light with lower intensity from behind your object to make it stand out a bit more.

Or, you could dive into things like Global Illumination and Final Gather, but I can't really give a tut of those here (can barely grapple with them myself).

Dave: Allow me to respectfully disagree... I don't think actually displacing geometry would be necessary for a pile of sand... a bump map should be all that's required to give it some nice texture. Just my opinion, and displacement maps are harder to handle for beginners (like myself user added image

-stwert

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Last edited by stwert; 05-04-2011 at 09:46 PM.

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# 6 05-04-2011 , 10:01 PM

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All of your posts have been useful...especially stwerts (since it was the first, I immediately started working on it)...I decided to leave the default lights and just pp it a bit in photoshop..what do you think guys?

Btw I grained it up a bit and grunged the rim off in photoshop

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# 7 05-04-2011 , 10:10 PM

The thin red line
Join Date: Aug 2009

Location: England

Posts: 4,472

Try using a displacement filter in photoshop. save a picture of say pebels or a surface like that as a photoshop file and use that as your dislacement. That sould give you some thing like you are after.........dave

Edit: When I first looked at what you were trying to do I thought photoshop but I did not know if this was for a school project

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Last edited by daverave; 05-04-2011 at 10:14 PM.

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