Mastering Maya® 2009

Chapter 10. mental ray Shaders

mental ray is a rendering plug-in that is included with Maya. It is a professional-quality photorealistic renderer used throughout the industry in film, television, architectural visualization, and anywhere photorealism is required.

Learning mental ray takes time and practice. Even though it's a plug-in, you'll find that it is as deep and extensive as Maya itself. mental ray includes a library of custom shading nodes that work together to extend the capabilities of mental ray. There are a lot of these nodes, many more than can be covered in this book.

In this chapter you will learn to:

• Use ambient occlusion

• Understand shading concepts

• Apply reflection and refraction blur

• Use basic mental ray shaders

• Apply the car paint ...