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Software Discussion
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Maya
Mixed materials for one obj, transitions with transperancy?
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EinReh 3 posts13 Jul 2009Hello, I'm fairly new to Maya and ran into a problem. I hope one of you can help me out
I would like to mix several materials and asign them to one mesh. Furthermore I want to use transperancy or alpha maps to define where the transition from one material to another should appear. Just like working with layers in photoshop, to put it simple... I not only want to use several textures, but other settings for bump, reflection, luminance... as well.
I'm used to this workflow from Vue, there you can use so called "Mixed materials" where you can do just that very easily, or from cinema 4d, where you can "stack" materials on one obj and use Alpha maps to define where which Material is visible...
I've found that you can use "Layered Shaders" in Maya, still I think you can only combine several colorchannels or texturs, but not different bump/luminance/diffuse/ settings with those. Please correct me when I'm wrong and try to explain how I can set up those other settings with those Layered Shaders.
I know that I could use Polygonselection and assign the different materials by hand, but I dont want to use this workaround, since the transition don't fit up with the Polygonedges and the transition would be too harsh...
I'm very greatful for every help on my issue! Thanks in advance -
17 Jul 2009i wouldn't suggest texturing by selecting polygons. if you're working with render layers, and you have per-polygon materials your layers will break and your scene will get corrupted.
instead of making a layered shader, there's a layered texture node which is in a category all in it's own. this can be plugged into each attribute you want individually whether it be diffuse, bump, etc. you can also change blend modes and opacity just like photoshop. I honestly use the layered texture node in about 90% of the shaders i make.
so don't use the layered shader, i would suggest using MIA_material for everything
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EinReh 3 posts18 Jul 2009Thanks for the tip! I thought layered texture was for the color attribute only... I'll be sure to try that out!
One quick question - what is a MIA-Material? -
18 Jul 2009it's a mental ray only material which pretty much replaces blinns, phongs, and lamberts forever! if you check the maya help file you'll find a huge page documenting the material and everything it can do.
if you open up the hypershade and click the "Create Maya Nodes" drop down, and bring up "Create mental ray Nodes", it'll be in the materials tab -
EinReh 3 posts18 Jul 2009I see, thanks again for all the tips!
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