[Maya LT] Project due and badly need help shading, lighting, rendering
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Hi guys.
I know that I will eventually need to create a RENDER of this so I should get my first (broader) questions out of the way first:
- Final project is a .mov file min 300 frames. Maya LT does not render. Assuming I finished all my work in Maya LT, what am I to expect if I have to basically "upgrade" to. the full Maya package in order to render the work? How will the installation take place (student account)? More specifically: how, and what aspects of my files will be overwritten, deleted, or just basically changed during this process?
This may be a very elaborate message but I've been working at this house / interior modelling project for over a week and it is due on March 10. I have got the foundations of my house (molding, rooms, walls, doors, glass doors, windows, etc). Overview: I took a short course on 3D design and it was taught with 3DS Max. We learnt shaders and textures towards the tail end of the class and I really, really am having a hard time even beginning to approach it the way I managed to get my modelling skills up to snuff in my own time. I am on Mac and therefore am working with Maya LT.
I know that I will eventually need to create a RENDER of this so I should get my first (broader) questions out of the way first:
- Final project is a .mov file min 300 frames. Maya LT does not render. Assuming I finished all my work in Maya LT, what am I to expect if I have to basically "upgrade" to. the full Maya package in order to render the work? How will the installation take place (student account)? More specifically: how, and what aspects of my files will be overwritten, deleted, or just basically changed during this process?
- For instance, will I have to re-assign textures to my scene? What amount of the work will be lost in the upgrade? Please handle these rendering questions like you are speaking to a complete and utter newbie/fool, because that is where my head is at right now, I am clueless and need any feedback to be reassuring if not simply explained.
Because I am on crunch time, I really need a framework for SHADING. It needs to be utterly simple and not embellished or elaborate in any way. One way I am tentatively thinking of this is to not use any external files other than when I absolutely need them and when they are not provided by the software. The thing is I am so new to this program that I do not know what entirely Maya LT has on board.
- Axiom 1: Will use "textures" online when they are likely to not be offered on board. E.g. leather or wool texture for couch. How does this thinking need to be further informed?
- Axiom 2: Must assign "materials" to basic unfurnished ("non-furniture") elements. Hence materials must be very important. What is this "materials" thing and why is it so elaborately and complicatedly explained to us as nodes, shaders, and the like?
Because I am on crunch time, I really need a framework for SHADING. It needs to be utterly simple and not embellished or elaborate in any way. One way I am tentatively thinking of this is to not use any external files other than when I absolutely need them and when they are not provided by the software. The thing is I am so new to this program that I do not know what entirely Maya LT has on board.
- Axiom 1: Will use "textures" online when they are likely to not be offered on board. E.g. leather or wool texture for couch. How does this thinking need to be further informed?
- Axiom 2: Must assign "materials" to basic unfurnished ("non-furniture") elements. Hence materials must be very important. What is this "materials" thing and why is it so elaborately and complicatedly explained to us as nodes, shaders, and the like?
- I know that in order to create a material you require specularity, bump and reflectivity. I know the theory. *What I desperately need, though, is to be able to get to assigning materials very quickly.* Continued:
- Right now, all I see are a whole lot of ways to access options like ShaderFX (with subsequent embarrassment of sub-menus) with absolutely no comprehension of how to flow at least somewhat seamlessly in order to get even the mere basic thing going. Continued:
- Example. I am trying to assign a material to a sliding glass door. Goal: increase base transparency. Attempt: right click assign new material. Options: phong, lld occ sampler, stingray pbs, shaderfx shader, shaderfx game hair, glsl shader. Continued:
- Past this, nothing gets actually clear, things get exponentially more obscure and stressful. At one point I remember manipulating transparency and it would affect transparency for all objects, not merely the one highlighted in green.
- Reiteration: I just need the simplest possible way to manipulate materials. Example: add wall colour; add molding colour. Change bump. Change reflectivity. Then hit Baking Preview Image -- and then, to understand what is going when I see the preview.
- Final comment for lighting and shaders: again I am not so sure addressing the issues above will resolve my workflow problem and considerably help, but I am hopeful. To touch on another small instance of something weird/off: I experimented with assigning shaders/"materials" to an object. Things start piling up in the (incredibly complex, detailed, difficult) Attribute Editor. Baking Preview: the object goes totally black. At this point, I decide I want to remove the "inserts" to the object like StingrayPBS. Does anyone know how many sub-tabs this damn thing has? Every time I hit the forward button, more tabs pop up, including file1, file2, file3... defaultColorMngt, then elsewhere under 'List' of Attribute Editor I see Phong2. I want all of this stuff gone. It is most likely affecting the display of my object and it's just, awful, really, I can't even figure out a way to delete these tabs! 
I'm guessing I need to hold on off on the final steps (LIGHTING and ANIMATION).
- Can anyone recommend an easy way for me (tutorial) to replicate the simplest camera path animation for a short, brief walkthrough style impression of a house / interior? I can't even deal with the ambiguity of whether the same things apply to Maya / Maya LT without wondering whether how much of all of it is also different from 3DS Max. I just need the simplest darned video tutorial to do a path animation as a final step before rendering the thing.
- Can anyone recommend an easy way for me (tutorial) to replicate the simplest camera path animation for a short, brief walkthrough style impression of a house / interior? I can't even deal with the ambiguity of whether the same things apply to Maya / Maya LT without wondering whether how much of all of it is also different from 3DS Max. I just need the simplest darned video tutorial to do a path animation as a final step before rendering the thing.
- Same thing for lighting. If there are any simple ways to set up natural light inside the house and one or two simple additional lights indoors. The modelling portion of my project was much more complex for me, and everything following it must be simple because I can't afford to make it complex.
- I will stop here.