3Delight can achieve some very realistic imagery and has tools such as very high-quality displacement mapping, depth of field, motion blur, ray tracing and shadow maps, subsurface scattering on a per object basis, global illumination supporting HDRI and final gathering. Figures 6 and 7 are rendered directly within Maya using 3Delight.

[FIGURE 6-7] In Figure 6. the water surface is generated as a result of displacement mapping, while the particle splashes were extra geometry created in RealFlow. Figures 7 is a scene from Mark Smith’s animation project Monolith.

Amazing Animation
SIGGRAPH is a place to see the latest in computer graphics technology. In 1995, dna research, created by Pierre Lachapelle in association with TFX Animation, in Montreal Canada, wowed SIGGRAPH 1995 with a trailer to a film called The Boxer. The animation was far more advanced than anything else around. The piece was rendered in RenderMan and was exceptional on many levels. The software team at dna research has been developing 3Delight for many years, and it is now used in their production work. 3Delight has been involved in some other groundbreaking projects. These include Storm Studio’s Free Jimmy (www.freejimmy.com; not for children or the faint of heart but truly amazing) and the IMAX film Adventures in Animation 3D (www.adventuresinanimation.com). These are highly recommended for any CG enthusiast.

Additionally, 3Delight has been utilized in The Chronicles of Narnia, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Fantastic Four, Final Destination 3, The Woods, Bailey’s Billions, Superman Returns and Charlotte’s Web.

That’s a brief look at some RenderMan-compliant Maya programs. Another type of renderer deals with the physical properties of light in a different way. Let’s take a quick look at physically-based light simulation for Maya.

Mark Jennings Smith is a seasoned artist, animator and writer residing in Beverly Hills, CA. Smith has been fascinated by CG since 1972, when at age 10 a chance encounter with the first coin-op Pong changed his life. His interest in the entertainment field led Smith and a partner to establish Digital Drama in 1994, which focused on computer-generated imagery, animation, digital painting and special digital visual effects. Digital Drama designed the digital film effects and animation for companies such as Universal Pictures, Trimark Pictures, Fox Home Ent., HBO and Showtime. Smith has contributed to several books and magazines, including a chapter in Maya: Secrets of the Pros. He also created cover art for the book and a variety of other titles in the 3D arena. He served as the technical editor for Mastering Maya Complete 2 as well as consulted and beta-tested dozens of software packages. Smith has also taught visual effects and computer animation using Maya at New York University.