Technical Topics on Materials/Shading, and Rendering
- Types of Shaders: Lambert, Blinn, phong
- Maps
- Bump Mapping
- Rendering Methods
- Scanline (basic Maya renderer) - Fastest approach. Each polygon is projected point by point onto the view screen.
A zbuffer is generally used to deal with objects that obscure other objects.
Can't do reflection or refraction except as a hack. Can do shadows using a shadow map.
- Ray Tracing:
Much slower than scanline but produces much more realistic lighting. Best for highly reflective
(as opposed to diffuse) surfaces. Does much better job on shadows than scanline.
- Radiosity (Mental ray): A more advanced type of rendering that is good for diffuse surfaces.
It is available in the mental-ray renderer in Maya. Can be very slow.
- Anti-aliasing, Hypergraph
- Shadows - Shadow
maps vs ray traced shadows.
