In This Chapter

After you build a model car or assemble a plastic airplane model, the next thing you can't wait to do is paint it and stick decals on it. With 3D animation, it's usually the same feeling! This chapter addresses creating and applying all types of materials. One of the delights of 3D animation is trying out all those "what-if" material choices. What if the car was painted chrome with red leather trim or purple plastic with chrome polka dots? Simulating these surfaces with Maya is a straightforward task when you use Maya's Hypershade the material "laboratory." Applying revised materials and rendering the scene again is a snap. In this chapter, you'll focus first on the basics of creating materials and then learn how to add complexity and realism through advanced texture mapping:

• Using Hypershade An overview of Maya's material creating and editing tool

• Creating materials Building a surface type from scratch

• Using maps Replacing a material's solid color with an image

• Using procedural textures Replacing a material's solid color with a solid texture created by a mathematical formula

• Bump maps A texturing method that gives the impression of bumpiness on a surface

• Using maps for any attribute Replacing a solid color or a fixed number with an image to change the value across an object's surface

Key Terms

material The definition of all the ways a surface responds to light, including shininess, color, bumpiness, transparency, and so forth.

shader A shader refers to both the material and the lighting of a surface with respect to rendering.

Hypershade Maya's material editor.

texture map A 2D image applied across a surface; typically, a bitmap image, such as a photo of wood grain, that can be tiled.

UV coordinates Position information embedded in a 3D object that's used to size and position a texture map on it. Objects can have multiple sets of UV coordinates.

environmental textures, environment map A simulated surrounding world for a material to reflect.

volumetric material A material type for simulating non-solid materials, such as steam, smoke, dust, or clouds.

procedural texture A 2D or 3D texture created mathematically.

bump map Applying a texture to create the illusion of perturbing a surface's smoothness.

Phong A material type with sharp, tight highlights that's excellent for plastics.

Lambert A flat material type without highlights that works well for chalky matte surfaces.

Blinn A material type with softer highlights that works well for metals because its specular color can be customized.

Anisotropic A material type whose highlights follow the object's curvature; perfect for simulating the highlights on brushed aluminum wheels.

transparency The opposite of opacity; the ability to see through a material, such as glass.

translucency Semi-transparent, but with a subsurface scattering of light, such as light seen through a green maple leaf or the edges of a fine jade sculpture.

specular color The component of a material that reflects a light source the highlight.

self-illumination The material's sensitivity to light; fully self-illuminated materials are not affected by scene lighting, nor do they emit light.

Hotkeys to Memorize

Alt+h Open Hypershade.

6 Enable Hardware Texturing.