Some are just reused mental ray icons, others are new. Just extract these png icons to your Maya icon directory (ie maya2011-x64/prefs/icons)  if you want to use them.

Download

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

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 +180

Make sure to tick Horizontal Flip.

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.

Paint Effects Method

The method I prefer is to select your curve and from Maya’s rendering menu, select Paint Effects > Curve Utilities > Attach Brush to Curves

This will attach the default black Paint Effects brush to your curves. Make sure to share one brush so you can control the thickness of all these curves all at once: Paint Effects > Share One Brush

Curves rendered in V-Ray for Maya

There are a few problems with this method though.

mental ray cannot render Paint Effects at all, despite Maya Software, V-Ray and 3Delight being able to.

If you use this Paint Effects method and want to render with mental ray, you will have to convert the Paint Effects into mesh (which can get quite messy and heavy so for really complex scenes, but there are not to many alternatives).

There also may be a chance that some hard corners might bug out with this method. Although it is kind of rare, you can easily just bump up the Paint Effects resolution to fix it.

Alternative QuickTube Method

If you are using mental ray as your primary renderer, you could try running an old (but handy) mel script called xyQuickTube. It basically attaches nurbs cylinders to your curves.

While this is quite a heavy method, it works and it will render with mental ray.

Curves rendered as NURBS cylinders in mental ray

I’ve used this script on scenes containing DWG’s with thousands of curves in it so it is pretty dependable . Just make sure to get a coffee or something with those render translation times!

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!

If you’ve ever found yourself deleting folders or repeatedly adding in folders when starting new projects with Maya, there is actually a lot easier and quicker way to do this.

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

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 projectSetup.mel or np_getFileRuleWidgets.mel 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

Then copy this file to your Maya prefs scripts folder (usually located in Documents or My Documents).

Paste the script into your Maya Prefs folder

It’s beset to copy this file. 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 script in the main Program Files directory.

The last thing you want is a borked script which will force you to reinstall Maya because you don’t have a backup!

Editing the Script

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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 the file, find the lines similar to the screenshot below, there you can add in your own folders if 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 here 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 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 psd line in the previous screenshot, Maya will create a new folder called "psd". The blank spaces are where Maya will not create a folder.

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”.

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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

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.

spPaint3D is a replacement for Maya’s inbuilt geometryPaint script. However, unlike Maya’s basic geometryPaint, spPaint3D doesn’t rely on UV mapping for meshes.

This means very reliable placement of your objects.

All you do is select your object. Select your Target mesh and start painting.

Ready to paint Proxy Trees over the ground surface

You can also randomize scale and rotation when painting

If you’ve ever seen the videos for 3DS Max’s Object Paint feature, it is basically the same thing.

I have found it very useful for grass, bushes, trees, rocks, people (in Arch Viz), cars everything really!

Download Link

• spPaint3D (Redirects to CreativeCrash.com)

Click for HD 1920x1080 render

In finding some what little spare time I have, I’ve done a few mock-ups and draft images. It is a very unique building and really is challenging to light and frame. You can view my progress thread here.

You can view the other entries in the forum here, it’s worth checking out because there are some killer entries.

CGTalk Lighting Challenge #21

There are 5 choices of themes to try and light this by:

• Teenage Angst
• Glorious Morning
• Afraid of the Dark
• Winter Mood
• Romantic Sunset

Deadline is 31st December, so there is still time to have a go.

Here are some unshaded views of the scene.

Links

You can view the challenge thread here at CGTalk and the scene is available for download in multiple formats.