Due to these…situations, I have found that the fastest and most reliable way is to use the Tri-Planar Projection Mapping technique.

Objects like walls, facades, roofs, pathways and plasterboard can benefit from this quick technique.

The idea is to use a file texture that is plugged into a projection node (2D Projection) instead of a file texture that is connected to a normal file texture node (2D Normal). This way we don’t rely on UV mapping but instead Maya will “project” the texture onto all faces.

This method also makes it a breeze to get something like a consistent brick size across thousands of walls at once.

The only real drawback with this method is that you cannot animate objects, they have to remain static. The camera can still move though.

The network on the left uses a Projection node from the file texture, the network on the right uses normal 2D mapping

I’m sure a lot of people reading are already familiar with projection mapping in Maya, however if you aren’t you can continue below.

TriPlanar Projection Mapping Tutorial

First we’ll create this 2D Projection network by running the following MEL code:

optionVar -stringValue create2dTextureType "projection";
refreshCreateNodeUI();
hyperShadePanelCreate "2dTexture" file;
optionVar -stringValue create2dTextureType "normal";
refreshCreateNodeUI();

It’s probably best to save the above code to a hotkey, or to the shelf, as it’s quite laborious doing it any other way in Maya.

Open the Hypershade to see what the new network looks like (you may have to find it under the “Texture” tab in the hypershade).

The MEL code created this 2D Projection network

An important step is to make sure to change the projection node’s projection type attribute from Planar to TriPlanar like below:

The TriPlanar type will ensure Maya will project the texture onto all four faces of the object

Back in the Hypershade, assign an image to your newly created file texture, preferably a brick texture. (I chose the one located in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\brushImages\Brick2.jpg)

This is what your shading network should look like before we connect it to a material

Create a Lambert material and connect the Projection node, into your Lambert’s Diffuse slot like below:

Make sure to connect the Projection node to the material, not the file node

All you have to do now is assign your material to some walls. We can do this quickly by creating a few walls and some scene lights in order to speed things up a bit.

Just run this MEL code in the script editor which will create a basic scene:

polyPlane -ch on -o on -w 25 -h 25 -sw 1 -sh 1 -cuv 2 ;
polyCube -ch on -o on -w 10 -h 2.5 -d 0.3 -cuv 4 ;
move -r 0 1.4 0 ;
select -r pCube1 ;
duplicate -rr;
setAttr "pCube2.rotateY" -90;
move -r -5 0 -5 ;
polyCube -ch on -o on -w 0.3 -h 3 -d 8 -cuv 4 ;
move -r 0 1.4 0 ;
move -r 3 0 -7 ;
polyCube -ch on -o on -w 4 -h 8 -d 0.3 -cuv 4 ;
move -r 0 4.1 0 ;
move -r -2 0 -7 ;
defaultDirectionalLight(1, 1,1,1, "0", 0,0,0, 0);
setAttr "directionalLight1.rotateX" -75;
defaultAmbientLight(1, 0.45, 1,1,1, "0", 0,0,0, "1");
setAttr "place3dTexture1.scaleX" 5;
setAttr "place3dTexture1.scaleY" 5;
setAttr "place3dTexture1.scaleZ" 5;
select -clear;

Now assign your brick material to these walls.

Most times Maya will not display projected textures at it’s highest quality in the viewport, however it is nothing to be concerned about.

Once you render the scene you’ll see that all the bricks are the exact same size on the walls.

To control the scale of the bricks, globally, you’ll need to adjust the place3dTexture’s scale.

You can also add more projection nodes and add them to other slots of the material like bump and specular maps.

This is a huge time-saver on big scenes

Under most V-Ray lights there is a U and V parameter present. Using these values to adjust the size of your light instead of just scaling will produce more accurate results and correct output values and not to mention faster render times.

Incorrect Scaling Causes Noise

The following renders are done with low anti-aliasing in order to show the difference between scaling your light with the scale tool (or via the attribute editor) and adjusting UV parameters.

Using physically correct scene with a basic sun + sky setup, I have cut a window behind the camera. To this window I have added a V-Ray Rectangle Light (V_Ray_Rect_Light) and scaled it using the scale tool to cover the window.

The portal light that has been scaled using the transform properties and produces quite a bit of noise

As you can see it is very noisy. Not exactly a good clean render! Now lets compare it to the exact same light that has been scaled with the UV parameters instead.

As you can see it is still noisy for the sake of the expirement but notice that the shadows are much cleaner on the back wall compared to the other image?

It is not even necessary to compare these images side by side as there is such a big difference. This should also apply to sky portal lights that have “Store with Irradiance Map” checked.

Also, notice the render times are much faster by using the UV method of scaling lights? Even in our dirty scene there is a 9 second difference, which could turn into hours of render-time saved with bigger projects and animations.

Incorrect Scaling Also Causes Incorrect Intensity

Although a little more obvious, another thing to remember is that the light’s intensities are also affected by the way the lights are scaled.

To our same scene I have added a basic 2450 lumen light above the statue. The light is 200cm x 20cm and is scaled to this dimension using the scale tool.

This is not really working!

With a camera of F22, Shutter Speed of 6 seconds, ISO 100 – there is way too much light being emitted!

This is because the scale of the light’s transform node is affecting the size and intensity of the light, whereas the UV parameter of the light is only affecting the surface area and not the intensity of the light itself.

Below, the UV parameters have been used to set the light to be the same size of 200cmx 20cm. We now have a much more respectable result.

The area light on the ceiling can now be considered physically correct since it has been scaled using the U and V parameters

However, the major flaw with this method is getting the HDRI shadows and the V-Ray Sun shadows to match. It can be a real guessing game, especially if your trying to find that perfect angle to light your scene.

So after mucking around a bit in Maya I came up with this work flow that I thought might be useful to share.

Setting up a V-Ray Light Dome + V-Ray Sun Rig

Open your HDRI in Photohsop, convert it to an 8-bit image, and then adjust the exposure down so only the sun is visible. Once you have done this you can save it as “Sun Aim.jpg” or something.

Our aim with this underexposed image is to make it easy to align the V-Ray Sun with the sun in the HDR image, so that we can get a perfect match for shadows and light direction in your renders.

32-bit HDRI

8-Bit with adjusted exposure so only the sun is visible

In your Maya scene, create a V-Ray Dome Light, then bring in your new image into to Maya and attach it to the Dome Light’s Dome Tex slot.

Make sure to check Use Dome Tex and Tex Adaptive

Once you do this Maya should now automatically display your image in the viewport.

A V-Ray Dome Light in Maya's viewport

Now create a V-Ray Sun. By default the sun will not be lined up with the sun in the HDR image, the best way to do this is to go and create a camera from Create > Cameras > Camera

Rename the camera to camSunAim or something useful.

While looking through the default persp viewport, rotate camSunAim so it is roughly pointing towards the sun – make sure NOT to physically move this camera though, it has to remain at the centre of the world.

camSunAim (Selected Blue Object) now roughly points towards the HDRI sun

Look through camSunAim and adjust the rotation values of the camera so you can clearly see the sun in the centre of the viewport.

Do not move, pan, tumble or dolly - just adjust the camera's rotational values!

Select the V-Ray Sun (usually VRayGeoSun1) and position the “handle/gizmo” so that it so that it matches up to the centre of the sun. (You can always switch backwards to the perspective view to help out a bit, but as long as the V-Ray Sun matches the image through camSunAim it will be a perfect alignment).

The V-Ray Sun is now perfectly aligned to the HDRI, if you cannot see the VRayGeoSun1 gizmo, adjust the clipping planes of the camera.

To get the sun to lock on and follow the rotation of the V-Ray Dome Light, we will have to write an expression to do this.

Select VRayPlaceEnvTex1 and open the Attribute Editor.

Right click on Horizontal Rotation and click Create New Expression.

Assuming that you have left the original names in place for the Sun + Skydome placement node all this time, try the following code:

transform1.rotateY = -VRayPlaceEnvTex1.horRotation

You then should be able to adjust the Horizontal Rotation parameter of the V-Ray Dome and the V-Ray Sun will now follow it.

This should make lighting your scenes a much easier thing to do now.

Creating Skydome Libraries

I highly recommend you create a rig like this for each HDRI you own and save them all as separate Maya ASCII scenes for later use.

My premade skydome rigs in LayoutTools 2011

It makes lighting new projects from scratch much easier because you know what to expect right off the bat, especially if you find the right balance between HDRI brightness and V-Ray Sun brightness.

Obviously there are more advantages to using V-Ray’s frame-buffers over Maya’s default Render View, so this hidden extra is a great tool to have. Especially if you are like me and continually save images to help develop your scene.

To enable the history button open your Maya.env file (in your Maya prefs) with Notepad and add this line:

VRAY_VFB_HISTORY = 1

One warning though; It doesn’t save project specific images, so all previously saved renders appear no matter which project you are working on.

Personally I prefer the new darker theme as it’s much easier on the eyes after a long day. However at this stage it seems like it is possible to revert Maya back to it’s older “classic” appearance.

Obviously it won’t be exactly the same as it was before since its now using completely different code under the hood – but I reckon it comes pretty close.

Maya 2011's default theme

Maya 2011 "Windows" theme

All you need to do is add a little bit of text to your Maya shortcut. Under Windows 7 it looks like the following:

Add "-style" followed by "windows"

This shortcut will tell Maya to launch using the “Windows” theme, which is the closest match to the old Motif theme.  There are other sytles you can list too however this is closest.

I have no idea if this is a good idea to use in production, or if there are any major disadvantages, but it seems to run okay under Windows  7 for what little testing I have done.

If you are a stubborn person and cannot stand the new darker UI, then this little switch might be useful.

I really recommend you use the new darker UI though….save your eyes!

More Styles

There are several other styles of which you can try

• plastique
• cleanlooks
• motif
• cde

If you have ever found yourself consistently deleting folders or adding in new folders when starting new projects with Maya, there is actually a lot easier and quicker way to set this up.

Using a text editor (something like Notepad ++ with MEL syntax highlight),  you can edit scripts in Maya to make your project work-flow faster.

One of these scripts is projectSetup.mel (Maya 2010 and older) or np_getFileRuleWidgets.mel (Maya 2011 and newer).

Notepad++ with MEL syntax highlighting

Good organisation is key and I believe that keeping unnecessary and empty folders can make it harder to archive projects down the line, so I find it best to trim Maya’s Project hierarchy to make it easier to work with.

Default Project Set-up vs Custom Project Set-up

Too many empty, garbage folders

The default projectSetup.mel or np_getFileRuleWidgets.mel can often create too many empty, useless folders which you will probably never end up using like the screenshot above.

After editing, you can make nice, clean, trimmed project folders

After editing the script you can make nice, clean project folders. The process of making your own Maya Project hierarchy is quite simple and should save you a lot of time in the long run.

Before You Edit Scripts

First of all find the projectSetup.mel file (Maya 2010 and older) or the np_getFileRuleWidgets.mel file (Maya 2011 and newer) in your Maya install directory – you can do a search for it or simply find it under “Autodesk\Mayaversion\scripts\others”.

Copy this file from your Maya install directory (usually C:Program Files on Windows)

Paste it into your Maya Prefs folder (usually in My Documents or Documents on Windows)

Basically you never want to edit the original scripts that are in your Maya install directory!

Maya will always look for the script in your prefs folder first before it uses the default ones that ship with Maya.

The last thing you want is a borked script which will force you to reinstall Maya because you edited the original!

Editing the Script

Now using your text editor, you can open up this MEL script and add in your own lines to start editing the way Maya structures it’s project folders.

For instance, I have added a PSD Files folder so whenever I set-up a new project, Maya will create a folder called “psd” in my project directory.

Edit the file and find the lines similar to the screenshot below, there you can add in your own folders providing you follow the existing formatting:

Adding in this highlighted line will let Maya know to create a folder called "psd" the next time I create a new project

You can also see that I’ve added in other useful folders to my work-flow like a V-Ray renderData folder, new import and export folders…basically anything that will organise your projects a lot more efficiently.

If you do not want a folder created at all, you can merge it with another generic folder like “data” or “renderData” or just leave it blank so Maya will not create a folder at all.

Maya’s New Customised Project Dialogue Box

After adding in the line, Maya will create a new folder called "psd"

Hopefully this little tip can help you out somehow and helps to make a more efficient work-flow. Happy editing!

Luckily, we are able to control this effect directly in our cameras within Maya.

The Problem

A focal length of 14 produces a noticeable Keystone Effect

The reason why we want to “remove” the key-stoning effect is because when using wide lens angles (such as Focal Lengths of 14 or 16) a phenomenon occurs where the lens can make a subject look as if it is “falling over”.

The Solution

The Keystone Effect is reduced in this shot, however it is best not to eliminate it completely otherwise the subject may appear to "fall-over" in the opposite direction to what you were originally trying to correct

The idea is to correct the converging vertical lines into near perfect parallel lines which reduces this effect of “falling over”. It is best to avoid a picture with perfect parallel lines as what we are correcting is really a natural effect, it can just be too distracting in certain shots like the picture above.

The Vertical Film Offset Attribute

If you follow these steps you should be able to tweak and reduce the Keystone Effect until your shot looks more natural:

• Turn on the Resolution Gate
• Aim the Camera at the horizon or close to the horizon
• In the Attribute editor, use a value of around .1, .2 or .3 in the Vertical Film Offset
  (Remember the first input box will control the horizontal value [x], the second input box will control the vertical value [y]
• Adjust this value until your subject appears back in the Resolution Gate

You may have to aim your camera above or below the horizon depending on your scene, but if you control both this and the Film Offset value on your camera you should be able to completely control and reduce the Keystone Effect with Maya

Note: In V-Ray for Maya you have the option to use the Lens Shift option the V-Ray Physical Camera, however the visual feedback for this setting is not available in Maya’s viewport, therefore it is recommended to use the Film Offset attribute instead.

More Examples

You can even still see the effect in the following interior renders

The columns in this building appear to look slightly unnatural before the keystone effect is corrected in Maya

The Keystone Effect is slightly reduced in this shot

I should also mention that you can also use the Film Translate value in the camera, however this is not supported by some 3rd party renderers for Maya, so instead I prefer to use the Film Offset value. Use whatever works best.

Anyway, I’m trying to find a nice setting for the mia_material_x mats for foliage/leaves in mental ray. It’s quite difficult to find settings that look good through various lighting conditions.

Sunny day

Under a pale grey sky

This is looking OK, but there are three key ingredients to get really nice looking leaves.

• Decent diffuse texture
• Appropriate amount of reflection/gloss
  (obviously heavily depends on which species you are trying to create)
• Decent translucency texture

For mental ray specifically:

• Translucency value must to be always at 1
• Transparency colour must be set to pure white (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Image sourced from http://sor.typepad.com/

Once you have this basic it’s just a matter of tweaking the gloss and reflectivity settings until you have a nice look for your scene.

Unfortunately I have not found a “universal-looks-sweet-on-every-scene” setting yet…

Basically in a nutshell this script moves your object’s pivot point to the base of the bounding box. The kicker here is that it can be executed simultaneously across multiple objects at once.

Before script is applied

After script is applied

Download Link

• BasePivot MEL Script

If you use this script and Maya’s Bonus Tools (or Level Tools or whatever Autodesk calls it now),  it makes snapping hundreds of objects to the ground mesh a breeze.

When you have Maya open and are adding or deleting MEL scripts to the scripts directory, you don’t have to close down Maya and start it again.

Instead just type in “rehash” (without the quotes) in the script editor and Maya will force a refresh the script directory.