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Maya To Indigo Tutorial (coming...)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:05 am
by arneoog
The Maya to Indigo Tutorial will come in not too much time, I hope :)

[Matt B, I did some screenshots and wrote some stuff :D
Use them as you want, tell me if there is anything you want me to do.]

http://www.elqx.com/mayatoindigo/tutorial

Cheers! 8)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:18 am
by OnoSendai
Thanks arneoog!

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 2:44 am
by ThatDude33
ok I'll write some stuff :)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:05 am
by arneoog
nice 8)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:07 am
by ThatDude33
How to set up and render a basic scene:

So let's say you have a basic scene here, like mine. A couple of polygons and a basic plane.
Image

So you want to render this in Indigo. First thing you have to do is to create a light. Your scene won't render without a light. Now, since Indigo is physically based, you need a 3d object to illuminate your scene.

One thing you might want to consider is render time. The more polygons that you have as lights, the more time the render will take.

So then, let's make a light.
Create a plane about 2 units long by 2 units wide. Position it at an angle, facing the object you want to render
Image

Now, we have to make sure that the light is pointing toward the object, and not away from it. Go to Display->Polygon Components->Normals. Select the plane, and you will see that the normals are facing away from the object we want to render.

Image

To fix this, go to Edit polygons->Normals->reverse
Image

Alright! Now what we want to do is triangulate everything. So, select everything. Go to Polygons->Triangulate. Alright, now that we have that done, we need materials. It's always a good idea to set the light materials last. This is because of some errors in my own exporting code... which I am unable to root out. So, we will assign the other materials first.

So far, only 3 materials are supported- that is, meshlights, phongs, and diffuse.
So, to let's make the diffuse material for the ground plane first. Create a lambert, and change its color.

Image

Great! Now let's make a reflective material for the object :). I'll create a mirror material, just as an example. Assign a phong with the following settings to the object.

Image

Alright. Now lets make the light. What you should know about the lighs is that the incandescene value is infact the blackbody temperature of the object. So, to make an object emit a white-ish light, the incandescense value should be in the middle range. For a dim, reddish light, it should be low, and for a bright, blue light it should be very high.

The next thing you should know is that the material type has to be lambert. The collor does not make a difference, just the incandescene value. So let's assign a lambert with the following properties to the plane/light.

Image

Good. Now, all we have to do is to set the render settings, make a camera, and render.

Open up MayaToIndigo, and go to create->camera. Position the camera anywhere you want.

Finally, go to the last tab on the right, and put in settings like this:

Image

click Generate XML Code and Maya should export, and Indigo should pop up. Happy Rendering :)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:14 am
by arneoog
Wow :shock: :D Yay! 8) Super awsome! :P

do you want me to write the explanation of each and everyone of the features?
(the one I started on)

nice 8)

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:01 am
by ThatDude33
How to set up and render a scene with sunlight 8)

Alright, so let's say you have a scene like mine. All polygons, just some basic stuff.

Image

So, what you want to do first is to triangulate everything and clear all history. (polygons->Triangulate, with everything selected, and edit->delete all by type->history)

Right, now load up Maya -> Indigo. Click Create->Sky Light.

Image

This creates a sphere named Sun. Position it wherever you want the sun's position in the render to be. There is no need for tweaking, since Indigo computes sunlight and sun color internally, to creat a physically correct sky simulation.

Also, this sun object will not appear in your render.

Now, though, go into the Environment Settings tab in your Maya->Indigo window.Check the box that says "Sky Light". The default values for that are good enough for now ;)

Finally, create a camera and position it wherever you want. Clear all history one last time, go into the Save and Render tab in Maya->Indigo, set the file to save it as, click render scene directly, and, finally, click Generate XML code.

Happy Rendering :)

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:13 am
by arneoog
Cool! :D 8)
It makes me wanna create a Sun Light Scene :P

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:08 pm
by MattMR2
Yeah, great works... I think maya indigo go in a good way, very very nice stuff...

Is it possible to know when the new released of the exporter will be released ?

NICE WORK...

Best regards.

Matt.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:00 am
by arneoog
What I hope is to release it the same day as indigo v0.6 is released :)
Now the version number will match :P

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:43 am
by ThatDude33
Well, what more do we need, apart from Halt time... and consec rejections, apart from that, were all done :)

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:44 am
by arneoog
heh :)
Halt Time has always been there 8) Going to change some layout in the Global Settings though :)

consec rejections, WTF? :P :? :D :lol:

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 10:38 am
by ThatDude33
*max num consec rejections* :D

and by halt time, i mean the time until the render stops all on its own :roll:

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:04 am
by arneoog
Both have been added 8)

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:39 am
by homafloek
ive followed thatdude33's tutorial to the letter still the only thing that indigo spits out is:
http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/2759 ... 878zm3.png

what have i been doing wrong?