Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Notice that the render times have gone up because you
increased the detail on the mesh. This is normal, but it can
become a problem if the mesh is too divided and has more faces
than you need. This box has fairly detailed carvings, so the level to
which you set Add Divisions in Step 8 gives a good result without
being too detailed. As your experience increases in Maya and men-
tal ray rendering, you'll learn how to use functions such as mental
ray's Approximation Editor to keep the overall detail low on the
mesh, but with smooth displacement results when you render.
This is an advanced technique, so we won't cover it in this topic.
You've taken in quite a lot by this point already.
The next time you select the box and open the Attribute
Editor, you'll see a new tab called polySubdFace1. This is the
node added with the Add Divisions function in Step 8. Feel free
to adjust the Subdivision Levels in that tab and rendering to see
how the detail levels affect the final render. Also try better quality settings in Render
Settings, as you did with the red wagon earlier in this chapter, to clean up the render to
your satisfaction.
You can open the scene file
boxRendering02.ma
from the
Scenes
folder in the Decorative_Box project to catch up to this point or to
check your work so far. You'll next add an IBL sphere and use the
HDR image you saw earlier in the chapter.
Figure 11.106
Click to create
an IBl.
Adding an IBl
Here's where things get fun. You'll add an IBL node to the scene and
add the office desktop HDR image to that IBL. First, make sure you
have mental ray selected as your renderer in the Render Settings win-
dow, and then follow along with these steps:
1. In the Render Settings window, click the Indirect Lighting tab.
At the top, in the Environment heading, click the Create button
for Image Based Lighting, as shown in Figure 11.106.
2. The Attribute Editor opens to a view of the newly created IBL
(named mentalrayIblShape1), as shown in Figure 11.107.
3. Click the folder icon ( ) next to the Image Name attribute.
Navigate to the
Sourceimages
folder of the Decorative_Box proj-
ect on your system, and select the file
DeskHDRLatLong.hdr
. You
see in your view panes that a large yellow sphere is created in
your scene. The office light probe HDR image is mapped. (See
Figure 11.108.)
Figure 11.107
The Attribute Editor
for the IBl node
