Maya Technical Paper: How to set up and optimise alpha planes when using Mental Ray Tutorial key:

i information m main This tutorial is created assuming the reader is relatively new /or is a little familiar with Maya already.

Tutorial overview
Using 2d textures can be a great way to speed up rendering time, though Maya has a very old bug with lambert shaders that do not do well mapped transparency (especially if it reaches the target total). When you create a new primitive in Maya, the assigned shader will be a lambert (unless otherwise configured in your preferences). A problem you might face during your creative pipeline when using alpha planes on lambert materials, is visual errors in rendering. These are common problems that may crop up in your workflow when you apply a colour and transparency alpha node to a shaders attributes. A solution is to use another shader, try a "surfaceShader". Maya notices that this type of shader is designed to alleviate connected render nodes (2D, 3D, materials, etc) and provides a more tuned confirugation for your lighting and rendering information.

1i| Alpha channel quick piggyback guide

Alpha channels can be created in various graphics formats (eg PNG , PSD , TGA , DDS , or TIFF). Transparency information is stored in addition to the actual image data. The alpha channel is usually the same color as a color channel of an image. Such is that an alpha channel typically comprises of bits; 8-bit image to 256 levels. The value of 0 corresponds to the attribute fully transparent, invisible. A value of 255 corresponds to "not transparent", visible. These values can operate the level of opacity in the transparency node of an alpha channel; this will update the texture swatch and live material.

2i| Plane creation and attribute settings

Polygons are like bitmaps and NURBS like vectors. The difference lies in how the model is build and generated. Typically, polygonal geometry is often favoured and you can sculpt detail into a model of high subdivision level. In this tutorial, we will be reshaping the primitive only slightly to give off the illusion of 3d. Therefore, it is not particularly important whether a primitive or NURB plane is selected.

2m| Plane creation and attribute settings

Click on file > set project, open your existing scene or start a new one. In your panel toolbar (fig. 1), make sure the grid button is turned on. In the main window, go to Create > Polygon Primitives > Interactive Creation (read 4i above*). Make sure this box is turned off (when this box is turned on, upon creation of primitive, its position in your scene will be defaulted and snapped to the centre of the grid (fig. 1). Notice that this option is also available under Create > NURBS Primitives. If you are would like to create a NURB primitive instead of a polygon primitive, deselect this box instead. Q: My Main window is missing?: A: In rare cases where some of the UI elements are missing, such as the main window, you will need to manually configure some preferences to enable these again. Dont worry, we will check your preferences; to do this, click Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences. The preferences window will load up, In the categories channel box, select UI Elements. Make sure all of the boxes are turned on under the Visible UI Elements field. Take some time to familiarise yourself with the Interface sub categories other sections in the preferences window. UI-related boxes are distributed throughout these three sub-sections in the channel box.

When the plane is created, head over to the channel box tab (on creation, this tab should show up automatically. (If you would like to activate this tab at any time, this button is located to the far-right on the status line). Adjust the values of scale X, Y, & Z to 24 (the plane will grow to the size of the grid, which is by default 24 units big in the X and Z axis).

Fig 1.

Change the name of the plane to Tree_Plane_GEO. Either click once on name field to begin with renaming of primitive (change the prefix, Tree, to the name that resembles the content of your texture file), or go to main window and click on the button Window > Outliner. In times when your scene is populated by many items, you may want to start using the outliner. This is catalogue showing you all of the items in the scene. In this window, click on Display > DAG Objects Only (Direct Acyclic Graph), making sure this box is on, to filter what is being shown. When this box is off, many hidden nodes will become visible. Think of these as the strings holding the scene together, delicate and fragile. We want to safely search and select the plane without making unintentional alterations to any hidden nodes. You can now select the plane to rename. In the channel box, change the value of value rotate X by 90.

Fig 2.

We want to re-position the pivot to the centre bottom of the plane. Look at this sequence for direction:

With the plane still selected, click on the Channel Box button to the far-left of the status line to expand some settings. Change the Subdivisions Width to a different value. We will later return to sculpt some dimension to the plane using soft select. After re-positioning is confirmed, go to the main window and click Edit > Delete by type > History, in the same window click on Modify > Freeze Transformations. With plane selected, RMB and hold mouse trigger > Assign Favourite Material > Surface Shader. This temporary menu will vanish if right mouse trigger is not held down. When you confirm from this selection, the attribute editor should open up automatically.

3m| Surface Shader Texture

Rename the base material to Tree_Plane_MAT, and then LMB on the SG (shading group) tab and rename this to Tree_Plane_MATSG. Look at this sequence for direction:

Pressing the chequered box will bring open the Create Render Node window. To apply a texture, make sure you click on the input connections box (if you are on the base material attribute settings (to the right of Out Color) to bring up the render node attribute. Make sure the Filter Type dropdown is set to Off. Click on the yellow folder to prompt an open search if you have connected to a wrong image and want to redirect to a color alpha image. Find the location of this image. Make sure it is a correct graphic format. Make sure the Color Profile dropdown is set to sRGB. Doing so retains color information of the texture. We want to begin to disconnect light linking of this plane in your scene. The main settings have been configured. Note that there is a Color Balance tab below. We will be expanding this tab when applying the second render node, the transparency alpha. Look at this sequence for direction:

Straight away, notice the resolution is very low and the tree is resulted pixelated. This is a viewport resolution setting which we will change. Open your render settings. When the window appears, in the common tab, change the rendered using dropdown to mental ray. Scroll down, under the Image Size tab, change the sub-entry Preset dropdown to HD 720. Make a main scene camera, position it, and set it as the current render camera.

Note that the rendered tree does not Inherent from the reduced viewport resolution. This reduced resolution is a default so as to make sure Maya is running more efficiently for you. We will cover how to punch up the viewport

resolution of the tree in the viewport. Doing so will help to better visualise how the scene looks for when you later populate the scene. We will punch up the resolution in small increments. A basic rule of thumb is to stay within a square metric range of 256 (defaulted value) 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096. Here I have chosen 1024 as it multiples the resolution by four, optimising the viewport texture enough to maintain a more accurate rendered self. Changing the resolution is dynamically effective, updating live in the viewport, though increased metric values will cause lag and the live update will take longer to process. Selecting a metric higher than 4096 is generally frowned upon as it will cause increased odds of lag and unnecessary slowness in Maya. Another dependant factor is how well your computer is so if you begin to suffer lag, reduce the value.

The pixel dimensions of the tree are saved at 1024x1024; these are constrained proportions. Maya prefers square textures, especially when offsetting and tiling textures on any rendering primitives. It is good practice to save all of your textures in this way, selecting one of the ranges. Return to the base material attribute menu by LMB selecting the output connections button: Pressing the chequered box will bring open the Create Render Node window, to the right of Out Transparency, to bring up the render node attributes. Click on the yellow folder to prompt an open search if you have connected to a wrong image and want to redirect to a transparency alpha image. Find the location of this image. Make sure it is a correct graphic format. Make sure the Filter Type dropdown is set to Off. Make sure the Color Profile dropdown is set to sRGB. Doing so retains color information of the texture. We want to begin to disconnect light linking of this plane in your scene. Note that there is a Color Balance tab below. We will be expanding this tab now. Turn on the Alpha Is Luminance button. The main settings have been configured. Look at this image for direction. You should be able to see a transparent alpha in your viewport:

Return to the base material attribute menu by LMB selecting the output connections button:

We are now going to be reselecting a texture resolution for this alpha plane. Expand the Hardware Texturing tab and change the Textured Channel dropdown to Combined Textures, and the Texture Resolution dropdown to Highest (256x256) Expand the Extra Attributes tab. Change the Resolution value to 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096. Note that the resolution will be capped depending on what the file resolution of the texture is. Look at this image for direction. You should be able to see a transparent alpha in your viewport:

4m| Populating the scene

In the main window, select Create > Lights > Area Light Name this area light, Main_Area_LIGHT In the Area lights attributes, expand the Shadows tab and scroll down to turn on the box Use Ray Trace Shadows. Change the Shadow Rays to 32. In the main window, select Lighting/Shading > Light linking Editor > Light-Centric. Here you can attach any lights to affect the Tree_Plane_GEO. In the main window, select Create > Poly Primitives > Sphere. Name this sphere, Dummy_Environment_Object_GEO Scale the sphere to a higher value and position it slightly away from the Tree_Plane_GEO In the main window, select Create > Polygon Primitives > Plane. Scale the plane to a higher value, preferably to a size so as to make sure the coverage of the shadows will fade completely over a long distance. (Scale X, Y, Z 350) Name this plane, Landscape_Plane_GEO. With the Landscape_Plane_Geo selected, RMB and hold mouse trigger > Assign Favourite Material > Use Background. This temporary menu will vanish if right mouse trigger is not held down. When you confirm from this selection, the attribute editor should open up automatically. Rename the base material to Landscape_Plane_MAT, and then LMB on the SG (shading group) tab and rename this to Landscape_Plane_MATSG.

5m| Reshaping of Tree_Plane_GEO

Select the Tree_Plane_GEO and press B to activate Soft Select mode. By default the falloff radius is quite strict. We are going to modify this and then reshape the plane. In the status line, click on the Show or hide the Tools Settings Scroll down, expand the Soft Selection tab. Adjust and modify the curve in the graph to a small inclination

Highlight the first point

Drag downsides to ease pulling effect

Select vertices to soft select, reshape the topology on the Tree_Plane_GEO.

In the panel toolbar, turn on the Resolution Gate. With the plane still selected, open the Attribute Editor, scroll down and expand the Render Stats tab. Select settings based on configurations you have in mind for how object is going to operate. In the panel toolbar, click on the Select Camera button. In the attribute editor, scroll down and expand the Environment tab and brighten the color. Look at this sequence for direction. Try to imitate the positioning of these scene items to the ones in the example:

You can continue to tune settings so that the sphere may project shadows onto the alpha planes.