Import Maya Camera to After Effects

To import Maya information from Maya to After Effects.

Be sure to set the frame rate to be identical to the After Effects Scene file.
Camera1 seems to work and I am sure the basic names work but no perspective & orthographic cameras.
To bake camera animation go to Edit -> Keys -> Bake Simulation and make sure the camera is not under any group nodes. If not use the constraint keys and bake the new camera.

Nulls can be named NULL, null or Null.

Upon export, select on the camera and relevant nulls that are to be used and export that as a .ma file.

Maya 2010, After Effects CS5

Linear Workflow for Vray

Discussions about linear workflow specifically for V-ray.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6931633#post6931633

MR AO pass respecting opacity maps

I found this thing I drew up for someone and thought I better junk it here incase I forget too.

Normalmaps

Since I am a Zbrush lover now I decided to do more research on when I can use normal maps and displacement maps. Normal maps don't seem to be used in full animations and more often in games due to the in-ability to render AO passes properly but I figured using it for low level details like fabrics and generating a normalmap for that would be awesome.

Best tip of the day in that tutorial -

[Implementation] Obtaining Clean Results Using Hybrid maps

Baking - hybrid smooth/unsmoothed tangents using vertex normals (xNormal, maya) / smoothing groups. (max)

1. UV borders should generally be converted to hard edges, this dramatically reduces smoothing errors. (with no seam problems)

2. To reduce smoothing errors in an area, you can either split the uv map and introduce more hard edges - or manually round the geometry.

3. Experiment with your baking package to see how far you can push it - xNormal bakes for example have less smoothing errors than 3ds max bakes.

Here is a link to a good tutorial and a snippet I think I should keep in mind.

Area Autodesk Normal Map Tutorial

BRDF Type for Vray

My brain fucking hurts. My world is no longer what I remember. I was reading up on material BRDF on Vray trying to get more information. And it is not what I/we remember.

Apparently, this might be the new world order. Say hello.

Blinn= Matte
Phong = Glossy
Ward = Metal

Vray Renderfarm

Change License Settings

Type the IP address of the computer that has the dongle to link to it.

Launch V-Ray license Server

Launch this on the machine that has the dongle so that other machines will link to it and call up the license.

Launch V-Ray render slave

For distributed rendering after clicking on the distributed button in the scene. All machines with this will handle a bucket square.

Backburner

Manager

Distribution machine launches this application.

Monitor

Distribution machine will also require this to keep track of renders.

Server

All rendering machines will launch this and link the IP address to the appropriate server machine.

*Important

Setup a hard-drive for all computers to have complete access. No passwords and usernames.

*Possibility of workgroup, username and password may need to be the same.

Zbrush Pipeline

Been testing my Maya 2010 -> Vray 1.5 with Zbrush 4 pipeline. Results haven't been completely stellar but we are getting there. Typing out my solution to remember.

Model a standard polygon model in Maya and maintain quads. If there is a hole in the model. Go to Tool -> Geometry -> Crease

Subdivide once if geometry has triangles to turn model into a 100% quad model. Use this subdivided version as level 1 now if this has been done.

Now -
Tool -> UV Map -> Delete UV
Tool -> UV Map -> AUVTiles

Do you painting and export the lowest level mesh as .obj
Now go to your lowest level of the model and to create the displacement map

Tool -> Displacement Map (use adaptive and smooth UV options on)

Now in photoshop
Edit -> Color Settings -> Gray -> Gray Gamma 2.2 (If done right. The gray value in the background areas of that texture will be kept at 129.)
Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Canvas Vertical

Now Save the file with options "As a Copy" & check the "ICC Profile: Gray Gamma 2.2"

Links below included a reply from Cgbeige -> this allows you to scale the model and have the displacement maps hold up.

CgTalk