Maya: Renderer, Lighting, Baking questions

[574lk3r]

Hello everybody!

I'm a Maya beginner, and I have some questions for you:

1. What renderer for Maya most of Second Life creators prefer using for texture baking: Mental Ray or V-Ray?
2. What kind of lighting in Maya Second Life creators using to achive results like this:

I mean, less shadows, dark spots inside and outside. Is it may special HDRI map? What do you guys think? Thank you!

Edited January 4, 2018 by 574lk3r

[OptimoMaximo]

Maya ships with SolidAngle's Arnold from version 2017. Previous versions came along with MentalRay. I personally never liked MentalRay, therefore my first renderer was VRay. Basically, they do pretty much the same: physically based rendering. Therefore, it's hard to say this image was made using this or that renderer. The images you posted here, for example, who can really tell what renderer was used? In capable hands, a renderer gives the same realistic results.

Usually, the best way to begin the lighting stage of a scene setup is to have a nice HDRI image for some initial proper lighting. This simulates a fake environment from a picture, casting light accordingly. There are tons of free HDRI images online, many of which are studio lighting. All these images look like they were lit in a photo studio, don't they? Hence my guess of the use of such HDRI.

6 hours ago, 574lk3r said:

I mean, less shadows, dark spots inside and outside. Is it may special HDRI map?

Moreover, a render can be split into different "passes", each pass delivering a specific visual component of the final image. An example could be the occlusion pass, where the same object is being rendered using only ambient occlusion, which is later used for compositing. 

Now that Maya ships with Arnold, i'm all for it. But it all boils down to personal preferences.

 

Edited January 4, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[imacrabpinch]

On 1/4/2018 at 5:57 PM, OptimoMaximo said:

Maya ships with SolidAngle's Arnold from version 2017. Previous versions came along with MentalRay. I personally never liked MentalRay, therefore my first renderer was VRay. Basically, they do pretty much the same: physically based rendering. Therefore, it's hard to say this image was made using this or that renderer. The images you posted here, for example, who can really tell what renderer was used? In capable hands, a renderer gives the same realistic results.

Usually, the best way to begin the lighting stage of a scene setup is to have a nice HDRI image for some initial proper lighting. This simulates a fake environment from a picture, casting light accordingly. There are tons of free HDRI images online, many of which are studio lighting. All these images look like they were lit in a photo studio, don't they? Hence my guess of the use of such HDRI.

Moreover, a render can be split into different "passes", each pass delivering a specific visual component of the final image. An example could be the occlusion pass, where the same object is being rendered using only ambient occlusion, which is later used for compositing. 

Now that Maya ships with Arnold, i'm all for it. But it all boils down to personal preferences.

 

Not to dig this back up, but maybe you could help. I have been trying to evolve my bakes a bit with a combination of things. The problem I have with most HDRIs for clothing is that there is uneven light on say, the back or sides compared to the front.  Any recommendations on where to find an HDRI where the lighting would be even around, while still giving off shadows similar to the picture the OP posted?

Note: I typically use cycles and I don't use Arnold (so its been effort to experiment without full knowledge of it), but I've been tinkering with Maya and the thought of switching completely over. I know there may be those large pre-built in lighting domes and I wonder if those give the same effect? Thanks

[OptimoMaximo]

16 hours ago, imacrabpinch said:

The problem I have with most HDRIs for clothing is that there is uneven light on say, the back or sides compared to the front.  Any recommendations on where to find an HDRI where the lighting would be even around, while still giving off shadows similar to the picture the OP posted?

Baking is a very tiny niche demand, therefore image based lighting that aims at that isn't particularly easy to find, as opposed to hdri images that instead provide a good contrasty lighting. Substance Designer now supports HDRI imaging creation, so it wouldn't be too difficult to create baking-friendly environments.

Now, that may be a bit hardcore for anyone to approach such a solution (SD is node based and assumes some rendering pipeline knowledge), so my best suggestion is the following:

Find a good HDRI that lights the front as you wish it to be lit, regardless of what sides or back looks like. In Maya, either Arnold, VRay or Redshift use Image Based Lighting hdr applied to a dome or sphere object. This means you can  duplicate the IBL dome/sphere and rotate it around so that the same lighting applies to another side (say, the back). Adjusting the exposure values give you control over the overall lighting from each environment sphere.

Moreover, in Maya you can set render layers and apply a material override (e.g.: ambient occlusion, just make sure to plug normal maps to be accounted for in the AO pass) and AOVs (basically, components of the beauty render, just separated, like specular, indirect specular, etc) and render it all in one go, leaving the compositing of such effects to the post process stage in photoshop (or equivalent).

Built-in environment spheres are usually the so called "physical sun and sky" set ups, which is a no go in terms of even lighting distribution (it's basically just a clear sky and a light that determines the sun light direction, instead of a pre-made hdr image's sun)