just thought i would post this up for anyone that reads this This artists name is Sebastien Laban and i love his reel. Not only is he very talented but the editing on his reel is inspiring. I hope you enjoy...

http://sebastien.laban.free.fr/official/index.html

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Recently during a conversation with a friend HDRI was brought up. After the discussion it prompted me to create this image as an example of the importance of HDRI in CG. I used the same environment in both images but in the bottom image i used an HDR image and in the top i used a converted 8 bit version which i tone mapped in Photoshop. I used 3 different mia_material_x shaders and the chrome preset on each. The only thing that changes between each shader is the level of reflectivity. On the top image(8bit tone mapped) you can see as the level of reflectivity changes the reflection stays the same but gets less intense. This has the effect of just graying out the reflection. In contrast with the image below (32bit HDRI) as the level of reflectivity changes not only does the reflection become less intense but also more information is revealed in the highlights. Thus insted of just simply graying out the reflection the contrast of the environment is maintained as the intensity decreases.

For this reason alone i feel that HDR reflections are vastly more important then HDRI lighting. Image based lighting can be successfully accomplished with an 8bit file but reflections deserve a floating point environment.

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In a recent application that i filled out (which took an hour and half and i wrote 3 pages!) i was asked this question "If you had to give your key-to-success-advice to CG Artists users, which will it be?" I didn't think much of my answer at the time but now that i have read it and reflected, i thought i would share it. my answer Never stop learning! Feedback is gold. Finding new ways to do things is just as important as having set ways. Finally, always ask "why?"This post is written in the spirit of my above answer

i stand corrected as pointed out to me by aldrich the presets are still there they are just a little more hidden. if you open the attributes of a render layer and then go up to the presets button like you would with the mia_material_x they are right there. Thank you Al!

Now, that we have this fancy new render pass system in Maya 2009 we should be happy that we lost our previous presets right? wrong! lol. the presets do still . I do love this new system and the power is uncanny but sometimes you just want to do something the way your used to. I did take the time to see the new way to setup the zdepth render pass. It works well and i will prob use it when i need to but i will also continue to use the old way for a lot of things. After researching how to get back my preset i came up with nothing. You failed me google! So, i thought about it and then loaded up maya 2008 and deconstructed the preset so that i could recreate it in 2009. here you go!

• Open the hypershade
  
• Create a surface shader to either asign to everything or material override
  
• Create a Sampler Info, Multiply Divide, and Set Range
  
• Bring up the attributes for the Sampler Info. In the attributes box up top click on Attributes>Add Attribute. Add the Attribute cameraNearClipPlane check the radio button Hidden and then hit add. Next add the Attribute cameraFarClipPlane Check the radio button Hidden and hit add and then close.
  
• Next connect the attribute cameraNearClipPlaneto oldMin of the set range. Then connect the cameraFarClipPlane to oldMax of the set range.
  
• connect the pointCameraZ to Input1X of the Multiply Divide. Then open the attributes for for the multiply divide and change Input2X to -1.
  
• Connect the OutputX into inputX of the setRange. Open the Attributes for the setRange and change the min value to 1.
  
• Lastly Connect OutvalueX of the set range into outColorR,outColorG,outColorB.
  
• now by controlling then min and max of the set range you can control your zdepth.
  
• Lastly make sure you set your render software to maya software
  

I hope this makes sense if not i have uploaded a scene file from maya 2009 with this zdepth shader made. enjoy!

Download Scene File

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