Advanced Maya® Texturing and Lighting, Second Edition

Chapter 12. Working with Global Illumination, Final Gather, and mental ray Shaders

Global Illumination and Final Gather are powerful rendering methods that duplicate many of the physical and optical events common to the real world. For example, the Caustics attribute re-creates reflected specularity. Irradiance attributes, found on standard Maya materials, illuminate a scene in which no lights are present. Global Illumination and Final Gather are available through the mental ray renderer. In addition to a long list of specialized attributes, mental ray provides custom mental ray shaders.

Chapter Contents

• Exploring Global Illumination and photon tracing theory

• Using the Caustics attribute

• Applying mental ray shaders

• Using Final Gather and irradiance ...