Digital-Tutors has announced INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL RAY IN MAYA 2009 and MOTORCYCLE MODELING TECHNIQUES IN 3DS MAX, the latest additions to a collection of training for media and entertainment and developed for new and experienced artists using mental ray, a high-performance rendering engine developed by mental images that generates photorealistic images, and 3ds Max, the customizable and scalable modeling, animation, and rendering solutions for games, film, and television.
INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL RAY IN MAYA 2009 contains four hours of project-based training for new artists and provides a complete understanding of mental ray's core features and practical workflows to learning how to simulate physically accurate lighting and render various surface types. MOTORCYCLE MODELING TECHNIQUES IN 3DS MAX offers eight hours of self-paced training and teaches artists a flexible workflow to modeling photoreal motorcycles and production-applicable techniques to building complex geometry and hard surface assets in 3ds Max.
Key points and topics from INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL RAY IN MAYA 2009 include: overview of mental ray, global illumination, emitting GI photons from light sources, photon energy and decay parameters, final gather, controlling final gather accuracy, adding secondary final gather bounces, mixing final gather and global illumination, saving and reusing lighting data, importons, irradiance particles, portal lights, image-based lighting, HDR exposure controls, caustics, emitting caustic photons from lights, subsurface scattering shader, ambient occlusion shader, mental ray architectural materials, render passes for multi-pass rendering, creating pass contribution maps, and other innovative exercises created to teach artists the essentials of rendering in mental ray.
Key points and topics from MOTORCYCLE MODELING TECHNIQUES IN 3DS MAX include: modeling from references, hard surface modeling, polygon modeling techniques, spline-based modeling techniques, understanding metal-working process, motorcycle parts overview, modeling detail for realism, surface tools, creating seam detail, NURBS and splines for tubes and wires, creating geometry from existing pieces, adding welds to metal pieces, adding bevels to edges and polygons, modeling different types of materials, materials and lighting, texture maps, image-based lighting, reference images, tire treads with bump maps, setting up hierarchies, posing for final shots, and additional lessons developed to teach artists the essentials of modeling motorcycles in 3ds Max.
