Home » 2012»November»30 » Creating Trees in Maya / Onyx Forest Techniques, part Four
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Creating Trees in Maya / Onyx Forest Techniques, part Four
Creating Trees in Maya / Onyx Forest Techniques, part Four | 5.40 GB
This DVD explores how to incorporate the Onyx Tree suite of programs into a Maya and Mental Ray workflow, while demonstrating scene layout and rendering techniques that apply to any artist interested in natural environments. We begin with Onyx Broadleaf, an invaluable tool for quickly creating a diverse library of physically accurate trees. The user interface is explained while demonstrating how to export geometry to Maya, including wind animation and a custom Gnomon mel script for importing Onyx animation. Beyond Onyx animation, we also look at how to use softbody lattices to manually animate tree leaves for quick turnaround animation. A thorough demonstration of physical sun/sky, final gather and miaMaterials for trees is then provided including a detailed review of how to create custom leaf textures from scans. Broadleaf techniques culminate in the creation of an overgrown Highway scene with a final 4k composite in After Effects that includes beauty, Zdepth, fog passes and post-process effects with the Lenscare, Magic Bullet and Sapphire plug-ins. Moving on, we then explore Onyx Conifer, Palm and Bamboo in equal detail discussing library and rendering techniques for each type of tree concluding with a photorealistic bamboo forest that introduces final gather techniques for deep shadow environments. We wrap up the DVD with a demonstration of Mental Ray proxies, allowing environment artists a methodology for populating scenes with billions of polygons. Suited to both students and professionals, Alex shares his in-depth knowledge hoping to inspire artists to delve further into the world of natural CG environments.
Introduction to Onyx Onyx Broadleaf UI Exporting Trees to Maya Onyx Wind Animation Maya Dynamics Wind Animation Broadleaf Library Tree Rendering / Materials Highway Scene Intro Leaf Texture Creation Highway Scene Setup Highway: Overgrown Onyx Conifer Intro Conifer Rendering Palm Trees Bamboo Intro Bamboo Rendering Mental Ray Proxies Conclusion