In this lesson, you will use Maya's IPR rendering to quickly add color and texture to a scene. You will also use IPR to explore lighting and OptiF/X. You will start this lesson using an existing file that contains pre-built geometry, lights and materials that will give you a good starting point. IPR is Maya's Interactive Photorealistic Renderer. It creates a deep raster file for the image that you are working on for interactive editing. Every pixel in the image has shader and light information associated with it so that it will update whenever an attribute is changed.

STEP ONE Download the project files for your platform: NT - Ipr.zip IRIX - ipr.tar.gz Set your project to IPR and open the IPR.ma file from the scenes directory. The file opens to show the jester walking in the great hall. The layout of the workspace should show a Hypershade panel, a Render view panel and a perspective view. If you do not see this layout then select Panels > Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Render/Persp. This layout gives you all of the tools you will need to be successful with IPR. Move the Timeslider to Frame 150. In the Render view panel, select IPR > IPR Render > jesterCam. This will create a deep raster file that stores detailed information on every pixel in the image.

STEP TWO In the Render View panel, click drag to create a region for IPR updates. Draw a box that covers one of the pillars and part of the floor. By choosing a small region, you can ensure fast updates as you work. With your Middle MouseButton, drag and drop the Floor material from the Hypershade panel onto the floor area within the selected area of the Render view panel. Assign the Pillars and Buttress materials to the Pillars and Buttress objects in the scene. Don't add a shader to the wall because you will create a new shader in the next step. In the Render view panel, you can create new update regions as you need them.

STEP THREE You will now create and assign a wall material. From the Hypershade panel's Visor area, open up the Create > Materials section. Drag and drop a phongE material into the Hypershade panel's work area and rename it wall. Drag and drop the wall material onto the rear wall in the Render view panel. Define a new update area if necessary. A fractal texture will be used to make the wall bumpy. Drag and drop a 2D fractal texture from Create > Textures onto the wall material and connect it to the bump channel. Set the following attributes for the fractal's placement node: Repeat U to 0.03 Repeat V to 0.03

STEP FOUR A grid texture will be used to make bricks on the wall. Drag/drop a grid texture from Create > Textures into the work area. Click on the arrow in the bottom right of the grid texture and select outAlpha. Drag the connector to the arrow at the bottom left of the fractal texture and select the alphaOffset channel. Set the following attributes for the grid: U Width to 0.20 V Width to 0.20 Invert to On Set the following attributes for the grid's placement node: Rotate Frame to 90.0 Stagger to On Repeat U to 15.0 Repeat V to 30.0 Notice that the wall updates after every change you make. Tweak the values on any of the materials if you desire.

STEP FIVE You will now work on lights to create a dramatic setting. Select the three directional lights and Hide them. These lights were added to the scene to assist you in assigning materials. Now, the directional lights can be hidden and new lights can be created. From the Visor, open the Create > Lights section. Drag and drop a spotLight into the work area. Use Panels > Look Through Selected in the perspective view and use your Alt key view tools to position the light so that it is aimed at the Jester.

STEP SIX You can now adjust some of the light's attributes. Open the Attribute editor and set the following: Depth Map Shadows to On Penumbra Angle to -10 Dropoff to 12 You can now see the light in the Render view panel, but IPR has not added in the shadows. You need to update the shadow maps for IPR to show accurate shadows. In the IPR menu of the Render view, select Update Shadow Maps. This will generate and refresh the shadow maps since the spotlight was not in the scene when the deep raster file was created. If you move the spot light again you should update the shadow maps so that you are seeing the correct shadows. Adjust any of the settings on the light as you see fit.

STEP SEVEN You will now make a glowing light for Jester's staff. Create a point light by drag/dropping a point light from Create > Lights into the Hypershade workspace. Place it in front of the ball in the middle of the staff that the jester is holding. Set the attributes: Color R = 0.8 Color G = 0.8 Intensity = 0.6

STEP EIGHT At this point, the materials and lights will not be changing further. You can optimize IPR by turning IPR > IPR Tuning Options > Update Shading and Lighting to off. Drag and drop an opticalFX node from Create > Post Process onto the point light in the Hypershade work area. Set the following options: Glow Type to Exponential Halo Type to Rim Halo Halo Intensity = 0.38 Halo Spread = 1.4 Have fun with the opticalFX node by adjusting any of the other values.

CONCLUSION Using Maya's IPR allows you to quickly add color, lighting and textures to a scene.

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