Project 2 Help Session : Shading
The basic info on shading is covered in Learning Alias, the
Shaders and Textures section and lessons 9-10. Unlike the modeling
tutorials, this material doesn't take long to go through.
Interface
Throughout the shading sections, the book instructs you to open the
Multi-Lister and choose Shaders from a menu. In the version of Alias that
we have, choose Windows->Multi-lister->Shaders...
.
Shading models
Each shading model is named after the graphics person who developed it.
Don't worry about the details of these models. They basically work well
for different types of materials:
- Lambert -- matte and unpolished surfaces
- Phong -- glass and glossy surfaces
- Blinn -- reflective metals
- Lightsource -- don't use this
The shading parameters vary according to the model chosen. Focus on tweaking
the following parameters:
- Lambert
- Diffuse -- how much light is reflected from surface
- Color -- as you know it
- Incandescence -- color of unlit parts of surface (corresponds
to ambient color)
- Phong
- Diffuse
- Color
- Incandescence
- Specular -- color and intensity of specular highlight (intensity
is implicitly controlled by color value)
- Shininess -- size of specular highlight
- Reflectivity -- degree to which surroundings are reflected
- Transparency -- color and amount of transparency (as with Specular,
amount of transparency is implicitly controlled by color)
- Blinn
- Diffuse
- Color
- Incandescence
- Specular
- Reflectivity
- Specular Rolloff -- parameter which controls the effect of
increasing reflectivity at oblique angles
- Eccentricity -- size of specular highlight (unlike Shininess
only in that slider works in opposite direction)
Texture mapping
Alias provides three texture mapping tools:
- parametric mapping -- texture mapping as you know it
- solid projections -- various ways to cheat at achieving a solid
texture effect
- real solid texture mapping, in which a model is "carved out" of a
solid block of texture
Rendering
Read lesson 12 in Learning Alias to get the basics of rendering.
If your scene has reflective or transparent objects in it, be sure to
use Raytracing instead of Raycasting. Choose Raytracing or Raycasting
using the option dialog for Render->Render
.
The rendered images go into the pix
directory of the current project. You can view an image that is rendering
or was just rendered using Render->Show render
.