$30

Start seeing better results. Learn practical workflows to simulating physically accurate lighting and rendering various surface types and gain a comprehensive overview of the high performance tools and new features of mental ray in Maya 2009. Contains nearly 4 hours of project-based training and step-by-step recipes for new artists.
Popular highlights include:

Digital Tutors- Introduction to Mental Ray in Maya (2009)

$30

$30

In this tutorial, Ryan Kingslien takes you through the techniques he uses for achieving photo-real renders of digital sculptures. He shows you how to create a setup for rendering your Maya or ZBrush sculptures, allowing you to both analyze and present your digital sculptures in more realistic lighting. Using Maya and Mental Ray, he covers, setting up your scene, lights and camera, as well as creating a clay material, using depth of field, and improving the quality of your render without slowing it down.
Topics Covered:
* Creating a clay material
* Scene setup
* mib_Blackbody
* Area Lights
* Depth of field node
* Improving render quality
Ryan Kingslien
Resident Artist
The Gnomon Workshop
Ryan Kingslien studied traditional art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and digital art at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. He was the Product Manager for ZBrush 3 at Pixologic where he worked with programmers and artists to fuse traditional and digital art. While at Pixologic, Ryan consulted with companies such as ILM, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Bungie Studios, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts to integrate digital sculpting into their production pipelines. Currently, Ryan is a resident artist at The Gnomon Workshop where he continues to sculpt, share his passion for digital art and teach.

The Gnomon Workshop - Creating a Photo-Realistic Render in Mental Ray

$30

$30

On this DVD, Matt focuses on the fundamental implementation and functionality of Mental Ray from within Maya. He covers many areas, beginning with an in-depth exploration of the interface of Mental Ray, including the use of MEL scripts to access custom features. Next, he shows an initial scene setup using a custom naming script to label files automatically and correctly as they are output. Many other topics are covered in depth, including setting up basic frame buffers, using diagnostics to debug your scenes, various implementations of motion blur including the rasterizer (rapid motion), lens shaders, a custom shader allowing you to blur in post, depth of field, displacement utilizing the latest techniques, including a thorough explanation of ccmeshes (Catmull-Clark meshes) and how to access them from within Mental Ray for Maya.

Topics covered:

Mental Ray Interface
Initial Scene setup
MEL Commands for Scene Setup
Memory and Performance
Raytracing
Sampling and Contrast Threshold
Translation
Basic Frame Buffer
Diagnostics
Motion Blur
Depth of Field
Displacement
Approximation Editor

The Gnomon Workshop - Mental Ray: Fundamentals (Fully Updated!): Rendering Techniques (Matt Hartle)

$30

$30

In the second DVD of this series, Matt Hartle focuses on lighting, shaders, and High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) within Mental Ray for Maya. Mental Ray supports most of Maya's features, in addition to many others. This DVD shows you how to get the best use of Mental Ray to render fluids, particles, fur, geometry based paint effects, blurry reflections and refractions, area lights, contour rendering, and High Dynamic Range images.

The Gnomon Workshop - Mental Ray: Lighting and Shaders: Rendering Techniques (Matt Hartle)

$30

$30

In the third disk of this series, Matt Hartle focuses on Mental Ray's special rendering features, including global illumination, caustics, final gathering, and image-based lighting. Using multiple examples for each topic, this DVD teaches you efficient ways of using tools, examining numerous ways to recognize and eliminate artifacts.

The Gnomon Workshop - Mental Ray: Global Illumination: Rendering Techniques (Matt Hartle)

$30