Maya Dynamics and Effects - Introducing Maya 2011 - page 607

Figure 12.43
Paint Effects
can add realistic
flowers and grass
to any scene.
Paint Effects Attributes
It's best to create a single stroke of Paint Effects in a blank scene and experiment with
adjusting the various attributes to see how they affect the strokes. Select the stroke, and
open the Attribute Editor. Switch to the stroke's tab to access the attributes. For example,
for an African Lily Paint Effects stroke, the Attribute Editor tab is called africanLily1.
Each Paint Effects stroke produces tubes that render to create the desired effect. Each
tube (you can think of a tube as a stalk) can grow to have branches, twigs, leaves, flowers,
and buds. Each section of a tube has its own controls to give you the greatest flexibility
in creating your effect. As you experiment with Paint Effects, you'll begin to understand
how each attribute contributes to the final look of the effect.
Here is a summary of some Paint Effects attributes:
Brush Profile Gives you control over how the tubes are generated from the stroke; this is
done with the Brush Width attribute. This makes tubes emit from a wider breadth from
the stroke to cover more of an area.
Shading and Tube Shading Gives you access to the color controls for the tubes on a stroke.
Color1 and Color2 From bottom to top, graduates from Color1 to Color 2 along the
stalk only. The leaves and branches have their own color attributes, which you can
display by choosing Tubes ➔ Growth.
Incandescence1 and 2 Adds a gradient self-illumination to the tubes.
Transparency1 and 2 Adds a gradient transparency to each tube.
Hue/Sat/Value Rand Add some randomness to the color of the tubes.