Lately, beginning 3D artists often ask me the same question - where, in fact, to start learning 3D graphics, and in particular the package Autodesk Maya? What books or lessons can I recommend to those who would like to start studying the program? And in each of my answers, among other things, there is always the title of this book, which I recommend to everyone who would like to connect their life and career with Maya.

Therefore, in order to put together in one place the essence of my recommendation and provide a more detailed description of what I actually recommend, this note is entirely devoted to this book. Meet and Tremble - the great and terrible, most recommended book on Maya, a two-volume work of 1430 pages authored by Sergei Tsyptsyn - “ Understanding Maya»!

Handbook of the Servant of the Maya Cult ^

Don't be confused by the huge image just above, because Understanding Maya is one of those few books that are truly worthy of allocating so much space on your monitor screen. A huge number of laudatory reviews have been written for this book on the Internet, therefore, in order not to be banal, I will limit myself to just noting that Understanding Maya passion is so good and fits very well into the “young fighter course” of a novice Mayer. And at this point we will consider the topic of singing praises closed. Instead of singing songs of praise, I’d rather tell you what this book is actually about and why it’s so useful.

As the author himself warns us, Understanding Maya- this book is not about how to make it beautiful or master Maya in 21 days. Instead, Sergei Tsyptsyn offers us his own vision of this program, presented in a clear, easy to read and understand informal style. An experienced Maya specialist, Sergey shares with the reader everything he has learned about Maya over the years of working with it. The book aims to help the reader understand and feel Maya, giving a fundamental basis for future work with the program and any other training courses, lessons, books, etc.

And this is its beauty - while other, no doubt, also useful and necessary textbooks and lessons allow you to learn something specific and applied, for example, car modeling, Understanding Maya teaches you to “read” a program, see it from the inside and understand on a deeper level how it works and how it is structured. After all, for a beginning 3D artist this is the most important thing to understand. Without a doubt, even a beginner can be quickly taught to model a car, but without understanding the principles of what he is doing, such training will in many ways resemble rote learning of buttons and menus, which is not good.

Already from the first chapter of the book, you will learn about the history of the creation of Maya and why this 3D package is surrounded by an aura of mystery and charm. The second chapter will tell you about the program interface, its menu, main editors and ways of working in it. The third chapter is devoted to the architecture of Maya, its hidden side, internal structure, organization of the program at a low level, etc.

Actually, the first three chapters are the very “it” that is mandatory for studying and understanding Maya. Already in the fourth chapter, a slightly more practical introduction to the program begins, namely, to modeling, which would also be worth reading. But chapters 1-3 are the very fundamental basis I was talking about. You should start with it, since you won’t find better material in Russian. Read these chapters the first time, then watch another course, work with Maya, read the chapters again - and I am sure that you will begin to understand the program much better.

In general, the peculiarity of the book lies in the fact that it is subject to repeated reading - not everything can be understood the first time, and some things can be better understood and remembered with some practical experience, so I recommend periodically returning to the relevant chapters and scroll through them again, and with each day you work in Maya, you will increasingly begin to notice to yourself, “Oh, I already understand this...”.

Finally, the most delicious thing in this whole story is that a year and a half ago the author himself posted the book in the public domain, and now it is available to everyone. Find and download Understanding Maya(for example, from a torrent tracker) is no longer a problem, but once upon a time this was the cherished dream of many Mayers. Even legends went that somewhere in a black-black closet in a black-black house there was a black-black disk with a scanned book, ready to go on the Internet, but this fortress held out for three whole years. Some desperate people, including yours truly, simply bought it and are now the proud owners of paper copies. Although the price was, of course, steep, it was worth it.

The best way to remember the basic tools is Full time job with 3D package. In Fig. 1.1 presents the main tools of the Maya interface. The interface in Maya is very flexible, each user can customize it to suit their own purposes, all panels can be easily changed by adding the most popular commands to them. When developing Maya, the best ideas and capabilities of all its parent packages were used. Therefore, the Maya interface and its working environment were immediately adapted for different categories of users. Most importantly, do not try to remember all the ways to perform a particular operation, choose the one that is most suitable for you. Workspace (Workspace) - (Fig. 1.2) - manages the main work when creating a three-dimensional scene in Maya. It consists of an additional menu and panel that allows you to manage viewports. When you launch Maya for the first time, the workspace displays a perspective view (persp) by default. The name of the view or view camera type is indicated at the bottom of the work area (persp, side, top, front, etc.). The default origin is where the black lines intersect, in the center of the grid. This intersection can be found in any projection of the view if the grid display is turned on. You can maximize your workspace by hiding all Maya elements and panels. To do this, select in the main menu<Display > UI Elements > Hide All UI Elements(Show > UI Elements > Hide All UI Elements). Then click on the keys<Ctrl+m>, this will hide the main menu, and the keys<Shift+m>, this will hide the viewport menu: To return to the original mode, click on the keys Ctrl+<m>, this will hide the viewport menu: To return to the original mode, click on the keys> and Shift+>, then select from the main menuDisplay >UIElements >>, then select from the main menuShow All Elements In Maya, as in other 3D packages, there are three coordinate axes X, Y and Z. The grid is parallel to the XZ plane, so if you need to change the vertical position of an object, you need to change the Y coordinate. Each axis in Maya has its own color: X - red , Y – green, Z – blue. Many tools (Move, Rotate, Scale) use the same color scheme (Fig. 1.4) to help you navigate the location of the coordinate axes. Working with the menu Many tools are associated with a menu type selected from the list in the status bar ( Status Line) (Fig. 1.5). In Maya, menus are grouped into specific sets (Animation, Polygons, Surfaces, Rendering, and Dynamic). Each set has its own main menu. For example, if you select from the list of menu types Polygons<(Polygons)( F3<>), then the main menu items will correspond to commands for working with polygonal objects (Fig. 1.6). However, there are menu items that appear regardless of the selected set: File, Edit, Modify, Create, Display, Window, Assets, Muscle and Help. They are designed to work with the basic commands in Maya. Each menu set has a corresponding key combination: Animation -<(Polygons)( F2<> Polygons ->Surfaces -<F4>Dynamic<F5> >Rendering F6 For example, if you select from the list of menu types Objects There are three main types of objects in Maya: polygon (), surfaces ( Surfaces) and separation surfaces ( Subdivs). Each type can be created in two ways: through the main menu ( Create(Create)) or using the panel Subdivs Shelf (Shelf). 1. Let's build a polygonal primitive through the main menu(Create). You can create polygon primitives automatically or interactively. The function responsible for this property is Create > Polygon Primitives > Interactive Creation(Create > Polygon Primitives > Interactive Construction). Make sure that the interactive construction function is disabled (Fig. 1.7): Create a sphere by selecting in the main menu Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere(Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere). Maya will automatically create a sphere and place it in the center of the coordinate grid (origin) (Fig. 1.8). Status Status Line Line Status Line When working with objects, the panel plays an important role (Status panel) (Fig. 1.9). The panel is located immediately below the main menu. Many teams onare presented in the form of icons, which allows you to save space and quickly access frequently used commands. Menu Selectoricons(Scene Icons)) are used to create, open and save Maya scenes. The next two groups ( SelectionMode(Select Mode) and SelectionMasks(Selection masks)) are used to control the selection of objects and their components. Masks will be discussed in more detail in the following exercises. Another group of icons (Fig. 1.10), located on the right side of the status panel Status Line, hides or shows editors including Attribute Editor(Attribute Editor), Channel Box(Channel Editor), Layer Editor(Layer Editor) and Tool Settings(Tool Settings). By default, the channel editor is displayed (Channel Box ), which allows you to transform an object in the scene and configure some object properties, as well as a layer editor (Layer Editor Status Line). When you create an object, such as a sphere, information about the object is displayed in these editors. For better organization of the status panel you can hide all icons divided into groups, and in the future show only those that you need for work (Fig. 1.11). To hide and display, just click on the vertical icon located in front of each group of icons. Create Panel Create Panel Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere(Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere). Maya will automatically create a sphere and place it in the center of the coordinate grid (origin) (Fig. 1.8).(Shelf) (Fig. 1.12) is located immediately below the status panel Create. The shelf contains the most used commands in Maya, grouped into groups; you can also save your set of frequently used commands to the shelf or delete unnecessary ones. For example, if you select from the list of menu types 2. Let's construct a polygonal primitive using the second method of constructing objects. On the panel<(Shelf) switch to tab(Polygons). Select the previously created sphere and delete it using the button (Shelf). 1. Let's build a polygonal primitive through the main menu Delete For example, if you select from the list of menu types(Delete)> on the keyboard. Select the cube icon. Maya will automatically build a cube in the center of the scene. 3. Disable the automatic mode for constructing primitives. To do this, enable the function Create(Shelf), you can hover over the icon, command name and description in the tooltip (Fig. 1.13), in addition, the entire name and description of all icons in Maya are displayed in the tooltip line ( Help(Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere). Maya will automatically create a sphere and place it in the center of the coordinate grid (origin) (Fig. 1.8).), located at the bottom of the interface. Working with objects 4. Now you have several objects in the scene. By default, all objects are presented in wireframe form ( Wireframe). Using a tool Select Tool(Selection Tool) Select any of the objects in the scene. The frame lines of an active (selected) object are colored green, and those of an inactive object are colored blue (Fig. 1.14). In Maya, any selected object or object component is always colored green. Channel Box Information about the position of the object in the scene, its scale, visibility is displayed in the channel editor Status Line(Fig. 1.15). To hide and display this panel, click on the button (Show or hide channel editor) on the panel (Status panel). In order to change the position of an object, just enter the required coordinate in the fields Translate X,Y,Z. 5. Select the object created interactively, i.e. that object that is not located at the origin (in the center of the scene). (Status panel). Main feature 0 channel editor is the ability to simultaneously select multiple fields. Thus, select three fields with values<, the fields will turn blue, and enter the value, press the key (Status panel). Enter 0 (Enter)>. The object should move to the center of the scene, and in the channel editor opposite the fields there should be values(Fig. 1.16). Working with Viewports By default, as mentioned above, a perspective view is displayed over the entire work area ( persp). To select a different workspace layout and, if you need to see the object from the side or from above, Maya provides a group of tools Quick layout buttons(Quick workspace layout) located on the left under Toolbox(Toolbar) (Fig. 1.17) 6. Click on the button Four View(Four views) Space (Space)>. A top view will open over the entire work area (<top). Working with space greatly speeds up working with viewports. In Maya, each view is a camera, and when we change the view, we switch to another camera; when we change the point of view, the position of the camera changes. By default, all cameras in a view are hidden, so the camera icon does not appear in the scene. To change the point of view in the scene, use the key<top> and Right mouse button (RMB), move the cursor (Fig. 1.18) To rotate the camera, hold down the key<top> and LMB (Fig. 1.19).<top To move the camera, hold down the key

> and the Middle Mouse Button (MCM) (Fig. 1.20).

The lesson requires additional correction by the site editor.

Chapter 8. Materials

1. In this chapter

2. Properties of materials

Properties of materials Beginning animators often do not pay enough attention to the purpose of materials and scene lighting. "Let's add some lights, make this object red and this object blue, and we're done." The result is usually a bright, flat scene. Most of the prejudices associated with computer animation expressed by representatives of traditional arts are associated precisely with the demonstration of the simplest visualizations, emphasizing the limitations this method
. However, you can create real works of art with Maya. True, creating complex coloring requires a lot of time. CG artists spend as much time on lighting and creating materials as they do modeling the objects in the scene.
Without materials it is impossible to create a realistic image. Keep in mind that their appearance depends on the lighting, so if, for example, the scene is very brightly lit, it makes sense to make the materials darker. Typically, work on materials and lighting occurs simultaneously, and the editing results are checked through numerous renderings. Knowing how to compensate for the limitations of virtual light sources and create a well-lit scene is an art, the details of which we will discuss in the next chapter. Here we will focus on discussing the properties of materials.

What do we mean by this term? This is a universal concept that describes all the characteristics of a surface type. Beginner users usually only notice the surface color at first - red or wood-colored or metallic silver. An experienced animator notices, however, others. For it, there is not just a metallic silver color, but a smooth polished surface that reflects surrounding objects. In addition to factors such as color, shine and reflectivity, Maya also considers transparency, translucency , refractive power, relief and many other user-configurable parameters. Attention to all these details allows you to create truly impressive animation.

3. Hypershade Dialog Box

Like most 3D animation programs, Maya has a material editor called a Hypershade that allows you to view sample materials as you edit them. Once you evaluate the appearance of the material in the sample cell, it makes sense to use interactive photorealistic renderings to make more precise adjustments. The Hypershade window takes a free-flowing approach to material development. Creation of certain effects occurs by connecting sample cells to each other. For example, an image of a brick wall is obtained by associating the Bump attribute with a pattern of bricks. The Node Editor also serves as a viewport in which you can highlight lights, cameras, materials, and other elements in the scene. To open this dialog box, use the command Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade (Window > Rendering Editors > Node Editor) or the keyboard shortcut Shift+t. The resulting dialog box is divided into three parts, as shown in Fig. 8.1. The vertical bar on the left is called the node creation area, and the two windows located in the work area on the right are simply called the top and bottom tabs.

Rice. 8.1. Hypershade Dialog Box

Node creation area
The node creation area shows all the object types of the selected category that you can create. Just select the desired sample in the list, and it will appear in the work area. Clicking the down arrow button at the top of the node creation area brings up a context menu for selecting an object category, containing five commands: Create Materials, Create Textures, Create Lights, Create Utilities and Create All Nodes. For the exercises in this chapter, the last option mentioned is best suited. You can hide the node creation area by clicking the leftmost button on the toolbar of the Hypershade window (Node Editor).

Workspace Tabs
The workspace can contain almost any window. This section will describe its default view, in which the tabs of the upper window are used to display existing materials, and the tabs of the lower window are used to create and edit them. Once you've mastered the Hypershade dialog box, you can customize your workspace windows the way you want and even create additional tabs, allowing you to edit multiple materials at once.

Top Window Tabs
The top window contains elements that are already part of the current scene. It is divided into six tabs, by element type: Materials, Textures (which are part of existing materials), Utilities, Cameras and Projects (to browse the project folder in search of others files). In this area, you can select any previously created scene element in order to:

• duplicate it and get the opportunity to make small changes to the original;
• edit it;
• select an object to which a specific material has been assigned, or designate a material as selected in this moment objects;
• make objects illuminated by a certain light source or exclude them from illumination;
• reuse an existing texture to create a new material;
• export materials to another scene.

In all of these cases, double-clicking on an element example opens the Attribute Editor dialog box.

Bottom Window Tabs
The bottom window is by default open on the Work Area tab, where new materials are created. When the scene is created, there are practically no elements in the top window. Therefore, the first thing you need to do after opening the Hypershade dialog box is to place new material to the work area and assign it to a scene object. Then go to the Shader Library tab and select the appropriate coloring option. Later in this chapter, we'll explain how to create additional tabs and how to put the content you create into the library.

Image:

4. Basic types of coloring pages

Basic types of coloring pages

The main types of colorings are shown in Fig. 8.2 and are described below.

Lambert coloring book
Lambert coloring is the basis of a flat, smooth material without specular highlights. When calculating it, reflective properties are not taken into account, due to which the surface takes on a matte appearance. Lambert coloring is used to simulate materials such as ceramics, chalk, matte paints, etc. By default, any created object has a Lambert coloring. But if the material of the object suggests the presence of specular highlights, then it makes sense to choose a different coloring. It is usually desirable to observe highlights even while modeling an object, as this helps detect discontinuities in the surface of the model.

Rice. 8.2. IN general case The PhongE coloring has softer highlights than the Phong coloring. The same can be said about the BlinnE and Blinn coloring pages

Phong coloring book
Phong coloring takes into account the curvature of the surface, the amount of light incident on the surface, and the orientation of the camera. The result is the harsh glare characteristic of polished surfaces such as plastic, porcelain and glazed ceramics.

NOTE
If during the animation process it turns out that the highlights flicker, change the Phong coloring to the Blinn coloring, giving the highlights a softer shape. This problem is exacerbated when using relief maps.

Extended Phong coloring
There is another version of the Phong coloring with softer highlights. At the same time, the rendering of an object that is assigned a material with this type of coloring occurs faster than usual. Most animators use regular Phong coloring for intense highlights and Blinn coloring for the rest.

Blinn coloring book
If you choose this type of coloring, the highlights on the surface of the material look more rounded and not as unnaturally large and bright as when coloring according to Phong. This type of paint is used to imitate metallic surfaces with soft highlights, such as copper or aluminum. Since the materials obtained from this coloring are universal and do not lead to flickering when working with relief maps, they will be used in the exercises in this chapter.

Anisotropic coloring
This coloring method allows you to simulate asymmetrical highlights on the surface of materials and control the orientation of these highlights. Objects with many parallel microgrooves, such as polished metal, reflect light depending on the direction of the grooves relative to the observer. Anisotropic paint is ideal for simulating materials such as hair, feathers, polished metal and satin fabric.

Other options
The four remaining types of materials are used in more complex cases, which we will list in this section. Layered shader allows you to combine several materials into one. For example, if you want to get chrome stains on a wood surface, use a chrome stain mask card.
Shading map is a color map assigned to surfaces after they are rendered, for example to create cartoon effects and other non-photorealistic effects.
Surface coloring (surface shader) Used to adjust the material's color, transparency, and shine effect. This type of coloring can be linked to the position of an object, causing the material to change color as the object moves.
The Use Background coloring type cuts a hole in the image's alpha channel where an object with that type of material appears. This technique is used to create composite animation from individual rendered images using special programs, which can be found in Chapter 14. Animators typically use such techniques to break up complex scenes into simpler ones, and to combine 3D animation with regular film.

Maya: In general, the PhongE coloring has softer highlights than the Phong coloring. The same can be said about Blin coloring pages

Image:

5. Material parameters

Material parameters

After reviewing the main types of coloring, it’s time to talk about their parameters. For the most part, they are the same for different colorings, so it makes sense to consider in detail only the parameters of the Blinn coloring. To gain access to edit material parameters, double-click on any of the material swatches in the Hypershade dialog box. Typically, you first create a basic version of the Blinn coloring, and then double-click to open the Attribute Editor dialog box, shown in Fig. 8.3. Notice the material system name at the top of the Attribute Editor dialog box. When creating another material using the same coloring type, the program will give it the same name, increasing the number at the end by one. It makes sense to change system names to more meaningful ones.

Rice. 8.Z. Attribute Editor dialog box with basic Blinn coloring parameters

The image next to Material Sample represents the sphere that the created material is assigned to. Its appearance changes as you edit the attributes of this material. The Type drop-down list is used to change the material type. But keep in mind that if the set of parameters changes, they automatically take on the default values, and the assigned name changes to the system name.
Below are the Common Material Attributes and Specular Shading sections. Since their parameters are most often changed when editing materials, these sections are expanded by default, unlike other sections of the Attribute Editor dialog window.
Note that the color swatch box, slider, and button are used to change the values ​​of the first five variables in the Common Material Attributes section. By moving the slider, you can make the material lighter or darker. To change the color of a material, open the Color Chooser dialog box by clicking on the color swatch field. If you want to replace the color with a texture, click the button. Let's list the Blinn coloring parameters contained in the Common Material Attributes and Specular Shading sections.

• Color. Base surface color.
• Transparency. Adjusts the degree of transparency of the material. As soon as the value of this parameter begins to differ from zero, the default black background in the material sample cell is replaced by a checkerboard pattern, which allows more appropriate evaluation of glass and other transparent material samples.
• Ambient Color. Determines the color of the material in the shadow area, where it is illuminated only by diffuse light. It makes sense in general to leave this parameter at zero, which corresponds to the color black. A backlight color other than black leads to the fact that after rendering such an object becomes less contrasting and flatter.
• Incandescence. Simulates the glow of the diffuse component of a material's color. Increasing this parameter leads to the gradual replacement of shadows on the surface of the material with the color of diffuse scattering. Keep in mind that after rendering, the material will appear as if it is emitting light, but there will actually be no change in the illumination of the surrounding objects.
• Diffuse (Diffuse color). This parameter specifies the color of the light rays scattered by the material when illuminated by direct light rays. By default, its value is 0.8, which makes the surface color specified using the Color parameter duller. Animators often assign a special texture map to this component to simulate a dirty surface.
• Translucence. This option, not present in previous versions of Maya, allows you to simulate the color of light shining through a material, and is used when creating materials such as frosted glass. The effect is based on the presence of light sources around and behind the object to which the translucent material is assigned.
• Translucence Focus. This option, which allows you to adjust how light is reflected from a surface, was also missing in previous versions of Maya. Its low values ​​lead to intense light scattering and the appearance of a soft, blurred transillumination effect.
• Eccentricity. The width of the highlight, which determines how polished or how rough the surface will appear.
• Specular Roll Off A parameter that sets the brightness of the specular highlight.
• Specular Color (Color of specular highlights). Typically, this parameter, which specifies the color of highlights on a shiny material, is set to white or gray.
• Reflectivity. Sets the brightness of the reflection of surrounding objects by the surface of the mirror material. Reflections can be simulated using both ray tracing and texture maps. If the Reflected Color attribute is not assigned a texture map, then to observe the effect caused by the change in reflectivity, you must enable tracking of the paths of individual light rays from the source to the camera lens, taking into account their reflection from objects in the scene and refraction in transparent media. This can be done by checking the Raytradng checkbox in the Raytradng Quality section of the Render Globals dialog box.
• Reflected Color. When working with material obtained from Blinn coloring, using the Color Chooser dialog box and the slider has no effect. But if you assign a texture map to the reflected light color, the material becomes able to reflect its environment. With this method of modeling a reflective surface, there is no slowdown in the rendering process that accompanies ray tracing. Additionally, it can be useful in situations where the environment is missing.

Let's look at the differences between some of the listed parameters using examples. In Fig. In Figure 8.4, the material assigned to the plane on the left has its Transparency parameter increased, making it possible to see the object located behind this plane. The material assigned to the plane on the left has a higher Translucence value, causing a shadow from the object behind to appear on its surface.

Rice. 8.4. Comparison of materials with increased Transparency and Translucency parameters

Materials assigned to objects have a Reflectivity value of 1 (that is, 100% reflectivity), but then use various methods additional effects were obtained. The material on the far left of the sphere has no texture map assigned to its Reflected Color attribute, while the material on the sphere just to the right has an Env Chrome map assigned to it, giving the appearance of having a pattern on the object's surface. . The material of the third sphere from the left was obtained by turning on the tracing effect, so objects in the surrounding environment are reflected on its surface. Of course, the Reflected Color attribute does not make any contribution to the appearance of the material. The rightmost sphere's material is achieved by combining a tracing effect and assigning a texture map to the Reflected Color attribute. The result is an almost mirror-like surface in which objects located next to the sphere are reflected.

Color Chooser Dialog Box
The Color Chooser dialog box appears whenever you click on the color swatch field. At the top of this window there is a panel with 14 buttons. Pressing the button causes the corresponding color to be highlighted. If you right-click on it, the button will change to the currently selected color. After clicking the button with the eyedropper icon, the mouse pointer changes its shape. If you now click on a color swatch in any of the Maya windows, that color will be highlighted. Below, in the Wheel section, there is a color spectrum shown in Fig. 8.5. The color model component adjustment sliders located below can be used in two modes - RGB (Red, Green and Blue) and HSV (Hue, Saturation and Value). The mode is selected using the drop-down list located at the bottom of the Sliders section. Moreover, the second of them is used more often. Use the Hue slider to select a color, then use the Saturation slider to choose how saturated the color is compared to gray. Finally, adjust the brightness of the color using the Value slider. At the very bottom of this section there is a slider that controls transparency, but it is used quite rarely.

Rice. 8.5 View of the Color Chooser dialog window in HSV mode

Exercise. Creating Standard Materials
Standard materials have a uniform color over the entire surface of the object. In this exercise we will use the Hypershade dialog box to create these materials and assign them to objects.

Ceramics
Let's assign a material to the pot that imitates ceramics, created based on Lambert's coloring.

1. Open the Hypershade dialog box by pressing Shift-t. Keep in mind that you will need both a workspace and a node creation area. Right-click on the top panel of the node creation area and select Create Materials from the menu that appears. Middle-click on the Lambert coloring swatch and drag the pointer to the bottom window of the work area. Then double-click on this material sample to open the Attribute Editor dialog box. If this dialog box does not appear, right-click on the material sample and select Attribute Editor from the context menu that appears.
2. Name the new material pottery. Click the color swatch box located to the right of the Color name. In the Color Chooser dialog box, set the Hue, Saturation, and Value parameters to 33, 0.8, and 0.7, respectively. Click the Accept button to close the Color Chooser dialog box.
3. Select the flower pot and right-click on the material swatch and select Assign Material to Selection from the context menu that appears. You will see the flower pot turn dark orange in the Perspective viewport.

Plastic
To imitate plastic, a material based on Blinn coloring is used, with bright highlights.

1. Using the middle mouse button, drag the Blinn coloring sample from the node creation area to the lower window of the workspace. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box and name the new material red_plastic.
2. Make the material color bright red. In the Color Chooser dialog box, you can click on one of the appropriate colors from the palette offered above, or select the desired shade using the Hue, Saturation and Value sliders.
3. In the Specular Shading section, enter the Eccentricity and Specular Roll Off values ​​of 0.1 and 1, respectively, to make the highlight color pure white. The material swatch shown at the top of the Attribute Editor dialog should now look like shiny red plastic.
4. Select the cylinder in the Perspective viewport and right-click on the material swatch in the Hypershade dialog box and select Assign Material to Selection from the context menu that appears. The cylinder should turn bright red.

Metal
Crafting metal requires a little trickery. The Attribute Editor dialog box sliders have upper and lower limits, which may not always include the values ​​you want. In most cases, this value can be entered into the text field located next to the slider. Sometimes this method produces impressive results.

1. Using the middle mouse button, drag another Blinn coloring sample from the node creation area to the lower window of the workspace. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for this material and name it gold.
2. In the Color Chooser dialog box, enter 40, 0.8, and 0.2 into the Hue, Saturation, and Value fields, respectively, and click Accept.
3. To give a material a metallic appearance, click the color swatch to the right of the Specular Color option name and enter Hue, Saturation, and Value in the Color Chooser dialog box. the values ​​are 40, 1 and 2 respectively, as shown in Fig. 8.6. Click the Accept button and then close the Attribute Editor dialog box.
4. Select the oblong spherical object and assign it the newly created material.
5. Right-click on the Perspective viewport and select Render > Render Current Frame from the quick access menu to view the final appearance of the materials.
6. Leave the Render View dialog box that appears open.

Reflective material obtained by tracing method
The resulting gold material quite convincingly imitates the appearance of gold, but what needs to be done to ensure that the surface of the material reflects the surrounding objects? This is done using the Reflectivity slider in the Attribute Editor dialog box, but you won't see any results unless you enable ray tracing or assign the texture map to the Reflected Color attribute.

1. In the Render View dialog box, click on the Render Globals button, as shown in Fig. 8.7. In the Raytracing section
   Quality: Select the Raytracing checkbox and close the dialog box. Render the scene again by clicking the leftmost button on the Render View dialog box toolbar, and you should notice that the surface of the oblong spherical object has begun to reflect its surroundings.

Rice. 8.6. Choosing a color when imitation gold

Rice. 8.7. Clicking this button opens the Render Globals dialog box

1. Rotate the Perspective viewport several times and render the scene to view it from different angles. Please note that red plastic is also reflective. To eliminate this, you need to set the Reflectivety parameter of the red_plastic material to zero.

NOTE
Remember that you can zoom and pan the rendered image, as well as any of the workspace windows in the window
Hypershade dialog (Node Editor).

Refractive material obtained by tracing method
It is also possible to create transparent materials that refract light. When passing through such a material, light rays will be deflected.

1. Using the middle mouse button, drag another Btinn coloring sample from the node creation area to the lower window of the workspace. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for this material and name it glass.
2. Make the material color black by moving the slider located to the right of the Color parameter name all the way to the left. On the contrary, move the slider located to the right of the Transparency parameter name all the way to the right. As you begin to increase the transparency value, the black background in the material sample cell will change to a checkerboard pattern. Set the Eccentricity parameter to OD, the Specular RollQff parameter to 1, and move the Specular Color slider all the way to the right.
3. Open the Raytrace Options section and check the Refractions checkbox. In the Refractive Index parameter field, enter a value of 1.5, which corresponds to the refractive index of glass. Select the ring located to the left of the flower pot and, by right-clicking on the glass material sample, select the Assign Material to Selection command from the context menu that appears.

Duplication of materials
It is possible to create a new material based on an existing one. This process begins with duplicating materials.

1. Select the gold material in the Hypershade dialog box (Node Editor) and press the Ctrl+d key combination to get a copy of it. The new material will be called goldl.
2. In the Attribute Editor dialog box, name the new material chrome. Click the color swatch box to the right of the Color name and enter a Hue value of 240. Move the Specular Color slider all the way to the right to set the specular color to pure white. . The material will take on the appearance of metal with a bluish tint. Set the Reflectivity value to 0.85 and assign the resulting material to a large sphere. Render the scene in a Perspective viewport. The surface of the sphere will reflect surrounding objects like a mirror.
3. The rendering result appears slightly blurry where objects reflect and refract light. This is due to the fact that in order to speed up the rendering process, the quality of the final image was reduced. To make it acceptable, open the Render Globals dialog box and select Production Quality from the Presets drop-down list under Anti-Aliasing Quality. High quality), as shown in Fig. 8.8. It also makes sense to increase the resolution, which is currently only 320x240 pixels. In the Presets drop-down list under Resolution, select Full 1024, which will result in an image with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. Now the visualization process will take more time, but the result is worth it! To view the image at its original scale, click the 1:1 button on the toolbar of the Render View dialog box.

Rice. 8.8. Changing the quality of the final image in the Render Globals dialog box

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6. Creating basic materials for the house model

Creating Basic Materials for a House Model

The exercises in Chapters 5 and 6 resulted in the creation of a house. Now you have to make his image more realistic using materials.

Setting up light sources
Before you start creating textures, you need to add a number of light sources to the scene so that during the test rendering process the house is illuminated from all sides. To facilitate the process of creating light sources, we offer you a script in MEL, the result of which will be the appearance of three spotlights in the scene.

1. Press the key combination Shift + S to open the Script Editor dialog box.
2. At the bottom of the Script Editor dialog box, a set of commands will appear that you need to execute. Place the cursor after the last command in this set and press the Ctrl+Enter key combination.
3. Press the key combination Shift+0 to open the Outliner dialog box. You will see that three light sources of the Spot Light type have appeared in the scene. Now you're ready to start creating materials.

Exercise. Home materials

1. To work more efficiently in this case, you need to see the Hypershade (Node Editor) and Render View (Visualizer) windows. Select the command Panels > Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Render/Persp from the quick access menu. Please note that if one of the mentioned windows was floating before selecting this command, it cannot be used as a viewport.
2. For a door handle, worn, polished metal is best. To start, leave only the DoorL layer visible. If objects such as cameras or deformers remain visible in the scene, hide them by selecting the Show > Cameras and Show > Deformers commands from the quick access menu. Zoom in so that the door handle is clearly visible.
3. Basically, the material you want to assign to the door handle is similar to the metal created in the previous exercise. So just repeat steps eight through ten and name the material DoorKnob-Blinn.

NOTE
When you use a hyphen in object names, the program automatically converts it to an underscore.

1. Make sure the doorknob is selected and assign it the DoorKnob_Blinn material. Click the third Render View toolbar button from the left to begin interactive photorealistic rendering. When the process is complete, draw a highlight box around the doorknob, starting with the mouse pointer at the top right corner and ending at the bottom left. Once its creation is completed, the frame will turn green. Now, after each change to the structure of the material, the area inside the frame will be automatically visualized.

1. Currently the doorknob has an ugly bright yellow stain on it, giving it an unreal appearance. Select the DoorKnob_Blinn material in the Hypershade window and open the Attr ibute Editor dialog box for it. Click the color sample box located to the right of the Specular Color parameter name, and in the Color Chooser dialog box, enter a value of 0.45 in the Value field. As a result, the specular highlight will become duller.
2. Save the scene as chOSTexturedHouse. At this point in the Perspective viewport, not only the door handle is visible, but also the door itself, so you can assign a material to it too.
3. Using the middle mouse button, drag another Blinn coloring sample from the node creation area to the lower window of the workspace. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for this material and name it Door-Blinn.
4. Select the Door object in the Perspective viewport. Remember that it is based on a NURBS primitive Cube, so after clicking on either side, be sure to press the t key to select the entire object.
5. Right-click on the new material swatch in the Hypershade dialog box and select Assign Material to Selection from the context menu that appears. The Render View window will automatically update the image.
6. Now it's time to configure the material parameters in the Attribute Editor dialog box. For the door we want a material that imitates wood, so click on the color swatch box located to the right of the Color parameter name and set the Hue, Saturation and Value parameters to 40, 0.8 and 0.3 respectively. Set the Eccentricity to 0.5 to increase the size of the specular highlights, and make the color of those highlights a little lighter than the base color of the door. To do this, click on the color sample field located to the right of the Specular Color parameter name and set the Hue, Saturation and Value parameters to 40, - 0.4 and 0.5 respectively. Finally, enter a value of 0 in the Reflectivity parameter field and save the scene.
7. Now let's create the material for the windows. Hide the DoorL layer and make the Windows layer visible!..
8. Create an anisotropic material, naming it Window_Anisotropic. Enter a value of 1 in the Diffuse parameter field, set the material color to black, move the Transparency parameter slider all the way to the right, and set the refractive index (remember, the field for this parameter is in the Raytrace Options section). equal to 1.5.
9. Click on the window glass surface and make sure that the object name Window_Glass appears at the top of the channel window. Assign the material Window_Anisotropic to the object. Repeat this operation for the second window pane and save the scene. Please note that due to the transparency of the material, it is now impossible to see the plane that serves as the basis of the glass. But you can still select it by clicking where you want it to be.
10. For a window frame, you need a material that imitates wood, about the same as for a door. Subsequently, the material can be used for the remaining wooden surfaces of the model. In this case it will look more realistic. After all, the same wood is used to create a house. It's also easier than creating a new material for every element in the scene. In the Materials tab of the Hypershade viewport, select the DoorKnob_BHnn material and press Ctrl+d to duplicate it. Name the copy Trim_Blinn.
11. In most cases, the Attribute Editor dialog box is used to edit material parameters. But now let's try to do this using the channel window. Enter the values ​​0.4, 0.35 and 0.25 in the Color R (Red), Color G (Green) and Color B (Blue) fields of the Trim_Blinn section, respectively, as shown in Fig. 8.9. The color of the copy will become darker than the color of the original material.
12. Select one of the Window_Frame objects and assign the Trim_Blinn material to it. Now you need to assign the same material to the horizontal and vertical partitions of the window. In the Outliner dialog box, click on the square with a plus sign located to the right of the Old_House object name, then in the same way, expand the Windows and Window groups and select the names of the Window_CrossH and Window_CrossV objects. Right-click on the Trim_Blinn material and select Assign Material to Selection from the context menu that appears. Perform the above operations with the second window.
13. So, the creation of basic materials for windows is completed. Hide the WindowsL layer and save the scene.

Rice. 8.12. The channel window is an alternative tool for editing material parameters

Exercise. Creation additional materials
Until this point, the created material was immediately assigned to the scene object. In this section we will demonstrate another way of working with materials. You will assign materials to the following parts of the house:

• vertical railing elements;
• horizontal railing elements;
• external walls;
• the foundation of the house;
• chimney;
• chimney;
• roof.

Since at this stage you will be focusing exclusively on creating materials, the remaining projection windows are not needed for now. Click the Hypershade window and press Spacebar to expand it to full screen. Increasing your workspace will increase your productivity.
You can continue editing the scene created in the previous exercise.

NOTE
For additional workspace, you can hide UI elements using the Display > Ш Elements > Hide UI Elements command. As a result, all elements from the status bar to the tooltip line will disappear. You can restore interface elements by selecting the Restore UI Elements command in the same menu.

1. For the vertical and horizontal elements of the railing we use two different materials. Select the Trim_Blinn material and duplicate it twice. Name the first copy VertPorchRaiLBlinn and the second copy HorizPorchRaiL Blinn. For now, that's all that needed to be done.
2. Now the walls of the house are next. Drag the PhongE coloring option from the node creation area to the bottom window of the workspace with the middle mouse button. Name this material Foundation_PhongE. Since the foundation is supposed to be slightly damp from dew, the extended version of Phong coloring is suitable for creating the material in the best possible way. Then create another material based on the Blinn coloring and name it Walls_Blinn.
3. Open the attribute editor for the Foundation_PhongE material. Click on the color swatch box located to the right of the Color parameter name and set the Hue, Saturation and Value parameters to 65, 0.45 and 0.35 respectively, click the Accept button ( Accept). Set the Diffuse parameter to 0.7, and increase the Roughness parameter, which is responsible for focusing specular highlights, to 0.81. Set the size of the specular highlights to 0.15 by entering this value in the Highlight Size field. Set Reflectivity to zero. Finally, click on the color swatch box located to the right of the Whiteness parameter name, which determines the color of the specular highlights, and enter values ​​270, 0.01 and 0 in the Hue, Saturation and Value fields ,2 respectively.
4. Select the Walls_Blinn material in the Materials tab of the Hypershade window and enter values ​​of 0.9, 0.68 and 0.4 in the Color R (Red), Color G (Green) and Color B (Blue) fields of the channel windows respectively. The color of the material should turn orange-brown.
5. Now let's create a material for the pipe using Lambert coloring. The pipe consists of bricks that do not have any specular highlights, so this type of coloring is best suited for them. Middle-click the Lambert coloring sample from the node creation area into the lower window of the Hypershade workspace and name the new material ChimneyBase_Lambert. Duplicate it and name the copy ChimneyPipe_Lambert. Select the ChimneyBase_Lambert material in the Materials tab. Open the Attribute Editor and give the material a dull red color. To do this, click on the color sample field located to the right of the Color parameter name and enter values ​​of 0.6 and 0.5 in the Saturation and Value parameters fields, respectively. Then select the ChimneyPipe_ Lambert material in the Materials tab and do the above operation using the parameters 0.4 and 0.5.
6. The last material to create is for the roof. You haven't yet used Phong coloring, which is ideal in this case when you want to imitate wet material. Drag the Phong coloring sample from the node creation area with the middle mouse button into the lower window of the Hypershade workspace (Node Editor) and name the new material Roof_Phong. In the channels window, enter the values ​​0.34, 0.312 and 0.102 in the Color R (Red), Color G (Green) and Color B (Blue) fields, respectively. The result will be a dark greenish-brown color.
7. At the moment, the Work Area tab is oversaturated with materials and it would be desirable to tidy it up. Right-click anywhere in the workspace and select Graph > Rearrange Graph from the context menu that appears. The appearance of the Hypershade window (Node Editor) after this operation is shown in Fig. 8.10. You now have a set of materials that can be assigned to the appropriate objects in the scene. Save the scene.

Rice. 8.10. A set of materials created for scene objects in the workspace of the Hypershade window

1. For further actions, you will need a Perspective projection window, an Outliner window and a Hypershade window. Select the command Panels > Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Outliner/Persp from the quick access menu. The presence of the Outliner window allows you to quickly select the desired object in the scene, while avoiding confusion. In the Hypershade window, click the Show Top Tabs Only button. This is the first button on the left from the group located in the upper right corner of the Hypershade window (Node Editor). Its exact location is shown in Fig. 8.1. To expand the workspace, click the Toggle the Create Bar On/Off button. Then select Display > UI Elements > Hide UI Elements from the quick access menu, and then press Shift+C to make the channels window visible. This will give you the opportunity to work with individual layers. The view of the program window after all the above-described manipulations is shown in Fig. 8.11.

Rice. 8.11. Using the Perspective, Outliner and Hypershade viewports, you can easily assign created materials to scene objects

1. In the Outliner window, all elements are in the Old_House group. Make all layers visible. To begin, select the OuterWall object in the Outliner window. A green frame should appear around this object in the Perspective viewport. Right-click on the Walls_Blinn material swatch in the Hypershade window and select Assign Material to Selection from the context menu that appears. Make the Perspective viewport active and press the 7 key to ensure that the scene is illuminated by all available light sources.
2. Select the Foundation object in the Outliner window and assign the Foundation_PhongE material to it. The exterior walls of the house now have the color of their assigned materials.
3. Select the pipe and assign it the ChimneyBase_Lambert material. Then, with the Chimney group expanded, select the Chimney_Top object and assign a material to it
   ChimneyPipe_Lambert. Even though the material intended for the base of the pipe was initially assigned to the chimney, this had no effect on the appearance of the ChimneyPipe_Lambert material that was assigned on top of it.
4. Expand the Roof group and, selecting the Roof_Slab object, assign the Trim_Blinn material to it. Next, select the Shingles object and assign it the Roof_ Phong material. Do the same for the RoofSidel subgroup.
5. Collapse the Roof group in the Outliner window and make the RoofL layer invisible. Save the scene.
6. Now all that remains is to assign the material to the parts of the porch. Select the PorchTrim object and assign it the Trim_Blinn material. Then select the Porch_RailBars, Porch_Legs and Porch_Poles objects, which should be assigned the VertPorchRail_Blinn material. Finally, assign the HorizPorchRail_Blinn material to the PorchFloor, Porch_Stairs and Porch_HandRails objects.
7. The assignment of base materials to scene objects is complete. In the next section we'll talk about how to increase the detail of objects using textures. Hide the PorchL layer and save the scene.

3.

Texture maps

The next step in working on the scene is to replace the created base materials with textures. Typically, this term refers to two-dimensional images that reproduce the pattern of a surface wrapped around a three-dimensional object. Their projection onto the surface can be carried out in various ways.

Projection coordinates
Projection coordinates, sometimes also called UV coordinates, specify how a 2D design will be placed on the model's surface, depending on whether the model is based on NURBS curves or polygons. In the first case, the model is equipped with a built-in projection coordinate system. Since NURBS surfaces are parametric by definition, the texture map automatically follows all the curves of that surface. However, even in this case, it is possible to edit the projection coordinates, which allows you to change the position and orientation of the texture on the surface of the object.
For polygonal surfaces, projection coordinates of several types are usually used: Planar, Cylindrical, Spherical. In addition, a special method called automatic projection is used. As you might expect, using Planar projection coordinates results in blurring of the image in areas perpendicular to the direction of projection. It seems that the problem can be solved using cylindrical and spherical projection coordinates. But they have singularity points located at the poles of the sphere and cylinder, where the texture map converges to one point.

In general, it is desirable to choose projection coordinates that match the shape of the surface as closely as possible. In addition, during the animation process you can hide the singularity region. In the most difficult cases, the problem is solved by using different sets of projection coordinates and carefully editing the position of the texture on the surface.

Interactive texture placement
The easiest way to edit the position of the texture is directly on the surface of the object. This is why Maya allows you to interactively place textures. With this feature, you can see what the design looks like as you move, rotate, and scale the texture's position control vectors. You can perform interactive texture placement only if hardware texture placement is enabled for at least one of the projection windows. Select Shading > Hardware Texturing from the quick menu or press the 6 key. This will allow you to see the result of assigning a texture map directly in the projection window.

Procedural texture maps
In addition to textures obtained by scanning photographs of real objects, there are procedural texture maps, generated mathematically. Many materials, such as brick, tiles, or gradient fill, have a repeating structure that can easily be represented by an equation. It is also mathematically possible to imitate marble, leather, water, granite and many other complex materials with a non-periodic structure. Procedural textures in Maya come in two variations - 2D and 3D. 2D texture maps can be thought of as raster images created using mathematical formulas. However, the generated two-dimensional image is usually projected onto the surface of a three-dimensional object. Accordingly, in this case you have to deal with all the problems that arise when using conventional textures. The pattern of 3D texture maps changes in space, and you see the image formed when the texture intersects with the surface of the object. It's like carving a figure out of a block of marble. Therefore, when working with procedural maps, projection coordinates are not required. But if deformations are applied to an object, it appears as if the texture map is sliding off the surface of the object. To correct the situation in this case, Maya uses an additional feature called Texture Reference Object. It allows you to deform textures along with the surface.
Procedural texture maps have a number of advantages. Since they are created based on mathematical formulas, you can create various effects by editing their parameters. Thanks to the ability to generate a random noise process, materials are created with a pattern in the form of areas of random shape and brightness. In addition, since texture maps exist at all points in three-dimensional space, they can be used to generate materials for complex objects, the selection of projection coordinates for which is a very labor-intensive task.

2D texture maps
2D procedural texture maps in Maya fall into two categories: repeat pattern maps and random pattern maps. The first include Grid (Grid), Checker (Checkerboard), Bulge (Bulges), Cloth (Fabric) and Ramp (Linear Gradient). Using these maps, you can create a drawing of a brick wall, tiles and other materials with a periodic structure, created by human hands. Random pattern cards include Fractal, Mountain, Noise, and Water. Based on these pseudo-random textures, it is convenient to create an imitation of natural surfaces.

3D texture maps
All 3D procedural texture maps, except the Snow map, are random maps. Some of them, for example Wood (Wood) or Marble (Marble), perfectly imitate natural materials. Even when modeling objects created by human hands, you cannot do without these maps. The imitation of mosaics, carpeting or a picture painted with a brush on the wall is based on three-dimensional texture maps.

Exercise. Purpose of textures
This exercise is about assigning some material characteristics to texture maps and editing the position of these maps on the surface of an object. You can continue working on the scene you created in the first exercise in this chapter.

1. Open the Hypershade dialog box by pressing Shift+T. You will need both the workspace windows and the node creation area. Right-click on the top panel of the node creation area and select Create Materials from the menu that appears. Using the middle mouse button, drag the Blinn coloring sample to the bottom window of the workspace and double-click on it to open the Attribute Editor dialog box.
2. Name the material checkerfloor. Click the button located to the right of the Color parameter name. The Create Render Node dialog box will appear, opened in the Textures tab, as shown in Fig. 8.12. This tab contains a list of all possible 2D and 3D procedural and regular textures. Click the button labeled Checker to assign the specified texture to the material property Color.

Rice. 8.12. The Create Render Node dialog box contains all possible types of texture maps

1. Expand the Perspective viewport to full screen and press the 5 key to ensure you are in shaded coloring mode. Select Shading > Hardware Texturing from the quick access menu.
2. In this case, you should use the “drag and drop” technique to assign a material to an object. Middle-click on the checkerfloor material sample cell located in the upper window of the workspace, drag the mouse pointer into the projection window and place the material on the floor plane. After this, the floor should take on the appearance of a chessboard.
3. Select the cell containing the checkerfloor material swatch in the Hypershade dialog box to make it active in the Attribute Editor. In the Texture Quality drop-down list under Hardware Texturing, select the High option. As a result, the chessboard pattern will become clearer.
4. In the Attribute Editor dialog box, the color swatch field for the checkerfloor material is light gray. Notice that the checkerboard design on the button on the right has changed to a right-pointing arrow. This means that the color of the material has been replaced by a texture map. Click this button to view the Checker texture map options.
5. The Checker Attributes section appears, shown in Figure 1. 8.13. Here you can, for example, change the color of the cells. Click the checkerboard button located to the right of the Colorl parameter name and select the Marble texture in the Create Render Node dialog box that appears. This will replace the white cells with a three-dimensional marble-like texture.

Rice. 8.13. Checker Attribute section in the Attribute Editor dialog window

NOTE
To return to the original node after assigning a texture, click the right-pointing arrow button located to the right of the material name at the top of the Attribute Editor dialog box. To unassign a texture to a material characteristic, right-click on the name of this characteristic and select the Break Connection command from the context menu that appears.

1. The Attribute Editor dialog box currently shows the marble texture options. Let's increase the veins on this texture. Go to the placeSdTexture tab and enter a value of 10 in the text fields to the right of the Scale parameter name. Visualize the Perspective viewport to see the result. As you can easily see, the floor reflects some objects. This is because the material's Reflectivity value assigned to the floor is 0.5.
2. Now let's assign a material with the text "Maya 4 Fundamentals" to the shield-shaped object obtained from the polygon mesh. Create a new material using the Blinn coloring and open the Attribute Editor dialog box for it. Name the material m4fshUd. Click the checkerboard button located to the right of the Color parameter name, and in the Create Render Node dialog box, click the button labeled File in the 2D Textures section. To the right of the Image Name text field is a button with a folder icon, clicking on which brings up a dialog box for selecting a file with a picture. Drag the m4fshild material from the top window of the workspace onto the shield-shaped object with the middle mouse button. As a result, a distorted texture will appear on its surface. The Shield object is obtained from a mesh of polygons using the rotation method. The projection coordinates are arranged in a circle in the direction of rotation of the spline. But we need the inscription to be located across the shield, so we will need to create new projection coordinates for it.
3. Select the Shield object and select Edit Polygons > Texture > Planar Mapping from the quick access menu. Control vectors of projection coordinates will appear on the surface of the object.
4. You can now change the size and position of the map handle. In one of its corners there is a red letter L. If you select it, it will turn yellow, and in the center there will be three sets of control vectors - one ring (for activating the Rotate transformation), as well as icons for the Scale and Move transformations (Move) as shown in Fig. 8.14. Using these control vectors, you can position the texture on the surface of the object in the desired way. Keep in mind that clicking the L again will cause the control vectors to disappear and return you to the original mode in which you can resize the texture map.

Rice. 8.14. The control vectors of the plane projection coordinates have been slightly moved away from the object for greater clarity. To make them visible, you need to click on the red letter L located in the corner of the manipulator

1. Render the scene to see the result. It is shown in Fig. 8.15.

Rice. 8.15. The result of rendering the scene after editing the position of the texture map on the surface of the Shield object. Please note that in tinted coloring mode the glass ring has become invisible

ADVICE
If you need to return control vectors responsible for the position of the texture, select the object, open the channels window by pressing the key combination Shift+C, and click on the polyPlanarProj line. If, as a result, control vectors do not appear, select the Display > UI Elements > Tool Box command from the quick access menu, click the sixth button from the top, Show Manipulator, and click on the name polyPlanarProj again.

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Maya: The result of rendering the scene after editing the position of the texture map on the surface of the Shield object. Pay attention

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Maya: The control vectors of the planar projection coordinates have been moved slightly away from the object for greater clarity. To do

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8. Adding textures to base materials

Adding textures to base materials

Now you already have an idea of ​​how to assign textures and place them on the surfaces of objects. In the next exercise you will use your knowledge to assign textures to base materials created for various elements of the house.

Exercise. Assigning textures to door handles, walls and windows
Unfortunately, using one-color material for door handles does not give the desired effect. We mentioned earlier that by assigning a texture map to the material property Diffuse, you can give an object a worn-out appearance. This is exactly what needs to be done with the door handle material.

1. First of all, load the desired scene. You can continue editing the house scene.
2. To begin, hide the interface elements, and then select Panels > Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Render/Persp from the quick access menu.
3. Leave only the DoorL layer visible. Select the doorknob and press f to fit it entirely within the screen. Launch interactive photorealistic rendering by clicking the third button from the left on the Render View window toolbar, and draw a box around the area that will be re-rendered each time you edit the material.
4. If one of the parts is not visible in the work area of ​​the Hypershade window, click the Show Top and Bottom Tabs button located in the upper right corner of the window's toolbar. Double-click the DoorKnob_Blinn material swatch to open the Attribute Editor dialog box. Click the checkerboard button to the right of the Diffuse parameter name to open the Create Render Node dialog box. Make sure that the 2D Textures section switch is set to Normal. In this case, the texture map will be placed taking into account the surface geometry. Then click on the Fractal button. The parameters of the selected texture will appear in the Attribute Editor dialog box. Notice the update to the Render View window.
5. By changing the procedural texture settings appropriately, you can create the appearance of a worn material. In the Fractal Attributes section, set the Amplitude, Threshold, Ratio, and Frequency Ratio parameters to 0.5, 0.1, 0.77, and 8, respectively, as shown in rice. 8.16. Go to the place2dTexture tab and in the 2D Texture Placement Attributes section, enter a value of 0.15 in the second field to the right of the Repeat UV parameter name. And finally, enter in the second field, located to the right of the Noise UV parameter, a value of 0.75. The last action will lead to the appearance of a more twisted fractal. Close the Attribute Editor dialog box.

Rice. 8.16. Entering fractal parameters in the Attribute Editor dialog window

1. Focus on the DoorG object and replicate the interactive photorealistic rendering. Double-click the Door_Blinn material swatch in the Hypershade window to open the Attribute Editor dialog box. You will have to repeat the above operation, replacing the Fractal texture with a Noise texture. In the Solid Fractal Attributes section, enter the Amplitude, Ratio, Frequency Ratio, and Depth Max values ​​as 0.8, 0.35, 20, and 8, respectively. as shown in fig. 8.17. From the Noise Type drop-down list, select the Wispy option. Then go to the place2dTexture tab and enter a value of 4 in the first field located to the right of the Repeat UV parameter name. Close the attribute editor and hide the DoorL layer, since this is the end of assigning door materials.

Rice. 8.17. Entering Noise Texture Parameters in the Attribute Editor Dialog Window

1. Now it's time to add texture to the exterior walls of the house. Make the OuterWallsL layer visible and perform an interactive photorealistic rendering so that the walls appear in the Render View window. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for the Walls_Blinn material and set the Reflectivity parameter to 0. Assign the Noise texture to the Color material characteristic. Enter the Amplitude, Ratio, Frequency Ratio, and Depth Max values ​​as 0.5, 0.77, 2, and 20, respectively. Set the Density parameter, which determines the number of random spots per unit area, to 5, set the Spottyness parameter, which specifies the random density of individual spots, to 0.3, and in the Falloff drop-down list, select the Bubble option. . In this case, the intensity will decrease to zero as it approaches the center of the random spot. The appearance of the Attribute Editor dialog window after the described parameter editing is shown in Fig. 8.18.

Rice. 8.18. Parameters of the Noise texture assigned to the Color property of the Walls_Blinn material

1. In the Color Balance section, you can easily change the brightness and contrast of random spots. Click the color swatch box to the right of the Color Gain parameter name and enter 41, 0.315 in the Hue, Saturation, and Value fields of the Color Chooser dialog box. and 0.656 respectively. You will see the texture change color. Then do the same for the Color Offset parameter using values ​​of 45.5, 0.393 and 0.12. Go to the placeZdTexture tab and enter a value of 5 in the second field to the right of the Repeat UV parameter name to compress the texture along the V axis. Save the scene.
2. Select the Walls_Blinn material again and assign the Diffuse property to the Mountain texture map. On the place2dTexture tab, enter the numbers 0 and 3 in the fields that specify the values ​​of the Repeat UV parameter. And in the second field, located to the right of the Noise UV parameter name, enter a value of 0.005. You also need to edit the parameters on the mountain! tab, as shown in Fig. 8.19. Set the Amplitude to 0.75 and the Snow Altitude and Snow Dropoff to 1.

Rice. 8.19. Parameters of the Mountain texture assigned to the Diffuse characteristic of the Walls_Blinn material

1. Now let's move on to editing the material assigned to the foundation. Open the attribute editor for the Foundation_PhongE material. Let's assign the material characteristic Color (Color) to the drawing from the file. Open the Create Render Node dialog box and click on the button labeled File in the 2D Textures section. On the filel tab, you can click the folder icon button located to the right of the Image Name text box and select the desired file, but there is an easier way to solve this problem.
2. From the Tab menu in the Hypershade window, select Create New Tab. A dialog box will appear as shown in Fig. 8.20. Enter the name of M4F maps in the New Tab Name field. Set the Initial Placement switch to the Bottom position, and the Tab Type switch to the Disk position. In the Root Directory field, enter the access route to the texture files. Click the Create button.

Rice. 8.20. Create New Tab Dialog Box

1. In the Hypershade window (node ​​editor), go to the newly created M4F maps tab. Samples of all the textures located in the folder you specified appeared there. Remember that you can also scroll and zoom when working in the Hypershade window. Select the sample obblestone.t,f and drag it with the middle mouse button into the Image Name field of the Attribute Editor dialog box. The access path to the desired file will automatically appear there. Press the Enter key and a texture sample will appear in the Texture Sample field, as shown in Fig. 8.21.

Rice. 8.21. The result of linking the cobblestone.tif texture to the File node

1. Go to the place2dTexture tab and enter the values ​​3 and 2 in the fields located to the right of the Repeat UV parameter (Repetition along UV axes), respectively. Select the Foundation_PhongE material in the Hypershade window and assign the Diffuse property to the Noise texture map. Enter the Amplitude, Ratio, Frequency Ratio, and Depth Max values ​​as 0.7, 0.77, 5, and 2, respectively. Set the Frequency parameter, which determines how many times the texture colors will be mixed, to 10. In the Noise Type drop-down list, select the Perlin Noise option. The Attribute Editor dialog box after entering all the parameters is shown in Fig. 8.22.

Rice. 8.22. By assigning a Noise texture map to the diffuse color, you will make the cobblestones that form the foundation of the house look dirty

1. Hide the OuterWalls layer and make the ChimneyL layer visible. Rescale to fit the entire pipe within the Perspective viewport and create an interactive photorealistic rendering. If you can't see it properly due to low light, select the light source spotLight2 in the Outliner dialog box and increase its intensity to 1.2 in the Channels window.
2. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for the ChimneyBase_Lambert material and assign the bricks.tif bitmap to the Color property by repeating the steps in step 12.
3. After completing the interactive photorealistic rendering, the bricks will appear to be elongated in a vertical direction. To resolve this issue, right-click on the ChimneyBase_ Lambert material sample in the Hypershade window and select Graph Network from the context menu that appears. Select the placeZdTexture node and enter a value of 6 in the second field located to the right of the Repeat UV parameter name. At the moment, the bricks look too clean, so you need to add a Solid Fractal texture map from the 3D Textures section (3D textures) material characteristic Diffuse (Diffuse color). In the 3d Texture Placement Attributes section of the place-3dTexture tab of the Attributes Editor dialog, click the Fit to group bbox button. Go to the solidFractal tab and set the Amplitude and Frequency Ratio parameters to 0.5 and 5 respectively. In the fields located to the right of the Ripples parameter name, enter the numbers 2,3 and 5. Set the Bias parameter value to 0.05.
4. In the Perspective viewport, rotate the pipe. Note that on both sides the texture is rotated in the wrong direction, as shown in Fig. 8.23. The fact is that the direction of the surface there is perpendicular to the direction of the front surface of the pipe. In other words, the U and V coordinates have simply swapped places, which is typical for NURBS surfaces. To solve this problem, select the side of the pipe where the texture is located incorrectly, and in the context menu, called up using the Alt + z key combination, click on the square located to the right of the Reverse Surface Direction command. Make sure the Surface Direction switch is set to Swap and click the Reverse button. To see the new kind textures, recreate interactive photorealistic renderings.
5. Before proceeding with further editing of materials, save the scene. All we have to do is add texture to the Transparency property of the Window_Anisotropic material. Make all layers visible except PorchL. If you now resort to interactive photorealistic rendering, you will not notice any special effects, since tracing is not yet carried out. In the Attribute Editor dialog box, assign the Transparency property to the Ramp texture map.
6. A large number of different effects are created based on the Ramp texture map. It can be considered as a gradient of transition from one color to another. In the Type drop-down list, select the Circular Ramp option, as shown in Fig. 8.24. Now you can specify areas of transparency by making the gradient color white. Make sure Linear is selected from the Interpolation drop-down list.

Rice. 8.23. Changing the direction of the surface will solve the problem with the incorrect position of the texture

1. Assigning a texture map to the Transparency material property will result in increased transparency near the edges of the glass. You can adjust the transparency decay using interactive photorealistic rendering. In the Attribute Editor dialog box, blue, green, and red are selected as the primary colors between which transitions are made. To shift the border between them, use the colored circles located to the left of the texture sample. You can remove any of the colors by clicking on the squares located on the right. Click on the green square to remove this color, and then select the blue circle. This will cause the color swatch box to the right of the Selected Color parameter name to turn blue. Change this color to almost black. In the Selected Position field, enter a value of 0.81, and make the U Wave parameter equal to 0.15. Set the noise level (Noise parameter) to 0.15, and set the Noise Freq parameter to 0.6. Watch in the Render View window as the appearance of the material changes each time you edit the parameters. Select the red circle located to the left of the texture swatch and change the red color to white. For Selected Position, enter a value of 0.415. Don't forget to save the scene.

Relief maps

Mapping the surface of an object creates the illusion of three-dimensional irregularities without changing its actual geometry. The apparent relief is adjusted by changing the brightness of the texture map samples. This is why bump maps are usually grayscale images. Gray is treated as a flat surface, with lighter areas protruding above it and darker areas forming depressions. In areas of brightness change, the illusion of relief is formed. Since the absence of real relief can be noticed when looking at the surface from the side, its formation using maps is used only when working with small details. For example, it's perfectly acceptable to use a bump map to simulate pores on the skin of a nose, but no one would use it to simulate a nose. However, with the help of relief maps, you can successfully form various surfaces - fabrics, wood fibers, metal defects, etc. - provided that the camera is not brought too close to them.

Coordinating texture with bump map
By skillfully combining texture and bump maps, you can achieve stunning surface detail, even on a simple model. Artists often create these maps in painting programs and carefully combine the locations of the grayscale relief areas of the map with the corresponding colored areas of the texture map. As already mentioned, in Maya the relief is formed based on the brightness of the texture map samples. In this case, it is desirable that the image is not very contrasty, but the transitions between white and black colors are clearly observed.

Exercise. Purpose of a relief map
In this exercise you will assign a random blotch effect to the Bump Mapping characteristic of the clay material used to simulate it. This will give the flower pot a more natural look.

1. Load the file ch08tut04end.mb. In the work area of ​​the Hypershade window (Node Editor), drag the pottery material swatch from the top window to the bottom with the middle mouse button.
2. Double-click this material sample to open its Attribute Editor dialog box. Click the checkerboard button to the right of the Bump Mapping parameter name to open the Create Render Node dialog box.
3. Click the Solid Fractal button in the 3D Textures section. In the 3d Bump Attributes section there are two parameters: Bump Value and Bump Depth. Please note that the last parameter has a default value of 1. This can be increased or decreased using the slider located to the right of the parameter name. Click on the right-pointing arrow button located to the right of the Bump Value parameter name to be able to edit the parameters of the fractal from which the bump is formed.
4. Set the Ratio value to one.
5. Go to the place3dTexture tab. In principle, you can work with this node on the Work Area tab of the Hypershade window. Enter a value of 50 in the fields to the right of the Scale parameter name.
6. Visualize the scene to see how the appearance of the flower pot has changed.

Exercise. Using bump maps for materials assigned to house parts
Applying bump maps to the materials assigned to different elements of the house requires much more effort. In this exercise, we'll use three materials to give you an idea of ​​how this can be done. So you'll change the appearance of the pipe, foundation, and exterior walls. 1. Continue editing the house scene you created or load the file ch08tutOSend.mb. Since bump maps are determined by the brightness of a grayscale image, sometimes it makes sense to take a texture pattern and transform it, as shown in Figure 1. 8.25. Once you have the bump map, all that remains is to combine it with the texture image assigned to the object.




Rice. 8.25. The bump maps shown below were obtained by converting the original textures to grayscale images

1. Select the command Panels > Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Render/Persp from the quick access menu. Leave only the Doorl layer visible. The point is that it will be easiest to assign a relief map to the door material. Since the object is a plane, it is possible to use almost any type of relief map. Change the position of the door in the Perspective viewport so that it is at a slight angle. Otherwise, it will be difficult to observe the resulting effect. Conduct interactive photorealistic renderings.
2. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for the material and click on the checkerboard button located to the right of the Bump Mapping parameter name. In the Create Render Node dialog box, click on the button labeled File in the 2D Textures section.
3. The relief map is assigned almost perfectly. Wood fibers are arranged vertically. Go to the bamp2d tab and reduce the Bump Depth parameter to 0.6. Click the right-pointing arrow button located to the right of the Bump Value parameter name and go to the placeZdTexture tab. Enter a value of 0.7 in the second field located to the right of the Repeat UV parameter name. In the first field to the right of the Noise UV parameter name, enter a value of 0.1 to make the vertical lines more wavy. The difference between the appearance of a door before and after assigning it to a bump map material is shown in Fig. 8.26.





Rice. 8.26. Door before and after bump map assignment

1. Now let's add a relief map to the material assigned to the walls of the house. Make the OuterWalls layer visible, focus on the front left side of the object, and create an interactive photorealistic render. Open the Attribute Editor dialog box for the Walls_Blinn material. Click on the checkerboard button located to the right of the Bump Mapping parameter name, and in the Create Render Node dialog box, click the button labeled File.
   On the bump2d tab, enter a Bump Depth value of 0.5. Again, use the planks_ bump.tif file as the bitmap image. Double-click on the Walls_Blinn material swatch in the Hypershade window to access the editing options for that material in the Channels window. Close the Attribute Editor dialog box.
2. The Inputs section of the Channels window contains information about all material connections, texture locations, and projection coordinates. There are currently three place2dTexture nodes available. Click on the bottom one, respectively the one created last, to see its parameters. Enter the Rotate Frame, Repeat U, and Repeat V fields as 90, 7, and 4, respectively.
3. In the process of assigning a relief map to the foundation material of the house, you will have to work hard to combine it with the cobblestone texture. Open the Attribute Editor dialog for the Foundation_PhongE material and connect the File texture to the Bump Mapping material characteristic. Make sure that the 2D Textures section switch is set to Normal. Since the original texture map was placed based on the surface geometry, it is easiest to align it with the bump map using the same settings.
4. The result of the default bump map location can be observed after the interactive photorealistic rendering. The cobblestones_bu mp.tif file is a modified image of the texture used to create the Foundation_PhongE material. If the relief map is superimposed on the texture, the final appearance of the material is very realistic. Right-click on the Foundation_PhongE material sample and select Graph Network from the context menu that appears. Then right-click anywhere on the Work Area tab and select Graph t Rearrange Graph.
5. Delete the place2dTexture node connected to the File node of the bump map by selecting it and pressing the Delete key. Then, while pressing the Ctrl key, drag the remaining place2dTexture node with the middle mouse button onto the File node of the relief map. When you release the mouse button, all the necessary connections will appear.
6. Select the Bump2d node and in the Attribute Editor dialog box, set the Bump Depth value to 1.2. As a result, noticeable grooves will appear between individual cobblestones, as shown in Fig. 8.27.
7. Now all that remains is to assign the relief map to the material used for the base of the pipe. Try to do it yourself.

To reinforce your knowledge of working with materials and texture maps, try editing the materials assigned to the rest of your house yourself, using techniques ranging from projecting textures onto a surface to applying 3D procedural maps. You can also add some items by placing them inside the house, such as simulating a coffee table, lamp and armchair. However, you can simply import all these objects from the corresponding file.
To import a scene, click on the square located to the right of the Import command on the File menu. Select Reset Settings from the Edit menu in the dialog box and click the Import button. Select the chOSimportObjects.mb file in the dialog box that appears and click the Import button again. The objects assigned the background material appear.
You may have to change the position of some objects. In Fig. Figure 8.28 shows the scene resulting from importing objects.

10. Let's summarize

Let's sum it up

Through the exercises in this chapter, you were able to discover the world of materials. It may seem overwhelming, but don't be discouraged! A full understanding of how individual nodes interact with each other and how editing certain parameters changes the appearance of the material comes with time and experience. We've provided you with basic information about materials and textures that you can use as a starting point for independent research. This chapter introduced you to the following topics and concepts:

• Coloring by Blinn, Phong, Lambert and anisotropic. The concept of basic coloring types may seem complicated at first, but now you have an idea of ​​how they differ from each other.
• Editing various characteristics materials. Understanding the purpose of the basic characteristics of a material is the key to successfully simulating the appearance of real surfaces.
• Working with the Hypershade window. You have gained proficiency in using the basic tool for creating and editing materials in Maya.
• Assigning materials to house elements. Using materials, you've made the model you created in the previous chapters truly worth rendering.
• Study of the materials assignment process. There is no set method for creating and assigning materials to objects in a scene, but we've given you an idea of ​​how the process generally works.
• Adding texture maps. A simple, single-color material may look good on its own, but by assigning some of its characteristics to a texture map, you can make it look truly realistic.
• Relief maps. You learned how to create the illusion of relief on a surface without changing its actual geometry.

Improving our workflow with custom settings, useful tips and tricks.

In principle, it doesn’t matter what software you use to work with 3D - you should always strive to find the least expensive and most optimal way. This path is critical for a 3D artist as it greatly speeds up our workflow. If we think less about all sorts of technical details, we have quite a lot of time left to implement something grandiose!

So, we know that Maya is a fairly powerful program that is replete with many tools that want to make our work easier, no matter what it is - modeling, animation, rendering... Let's take a closer look at them and see what might be useful to us.

Modeling

When it comes to modeling, you can probably guess that you can't speed up multiple edge extrudes and vertex manipulations. But you can try to make all this mess more convenient with the help of May's custom features.

Interface setup

If you are a 3D artist who devotes all his free time to creating characters, environment elements or interiors, it is unlikely that you will need Time Slider and Range Slider in the process of work, they will simply take up precious space.

They can be hidden by unchecking the boxes in the Display -> UI Elements menu. In general, all elements can be hidden by working only with the Marking Menu, but this depends on your convenience.

At the top left I have Poly Count turned on, an incredibly useful thing for a modeler, which shows the number of vertices, edges, units, but most importantly, faces and triangles. You can enable it in the Display -> Heads Up Display menu.

Shelves

Shelves are a 3D designer’s best friend. You can easily get lost in the incredible number of different commands, and to prevent this from happening, you can put the desired command on the shelf. By default, Maya already has shelves with a fairly good set of commands; for convenience, the necessary operations can be added there. You can create your own shelf by clicking on the triangle icon and selecting New Shelf. Give it a name and the shelf will appear at the top!

You can place the required command on the shelf as follows: open it through the menu, for example, Modify -> Center Pivot and hold down ctrl+shift and click on it - it will appear on the shelf.

You can also add commands to the shelf using the Script Editor, which is very important for all kinds of user scripts.

Open the Script Editor and check the box in History -> Echo All Commands. Now here we will see the script for each of our actions. Without closing the Script Editor, run the command, for example, Panels>Orthographic>Front. Let's select the resulting script, it will be lookThroughModelPanel front modelPanel4;, and using the middle mouse button, drag it to our shelf. Ta-daaam! This way you can make a custom button from any command in Maya.

By right-clicking on the new icon we will find ourselves in the shelf editor, here we can change the icon label and everything that we don’t like.

Custom Marking Menu

You can speed up the work process not only with the help of shelves. You can also create your own Marking Menu. If you have little idea what this thing is, just right-click on the polygonal object in the viewport. Here we have Object mode, Vertex, Edge, etc. In general, this is the same menu as above, only in a more interactive form. It’s easy to guess that if such a menu had commands that were convenient for us, the work would go even faster.

Go to Window->Settings/Preferences->Marking Menu Editor. In the window that appears, click Create Marking Menu. A window with gray boxes will appear in front of you. Each box is a place for a team; it occupies a certain direction (bottom, top, left, etc.). To add a command to a box, simply drag the command from your shelf onto this box with the middle mouse button. Once we have given our menu a name, click the Save button. After this, our menu should appear in the list of menus. All that remains is to give it a hotkey. To do this, select Hotkey Editor in Settings below and click Apply Settings.

After that, go to Window->Settings/Preferences->Hotkey Editor, scroll down and find User Marking Menus. Our new menu is above. On the right in the Assign New Hotkey window, you can select a hotkey by which the menu will respond. All you have to do is click Assign and the new marking menu is ready for use!

Layouts

When we are in the process of creating a model, very often one viewport window is not enough for us. We use front view, back view. When creating a uv scan, we use the UV Editor; it is important to see Hypershade, etc. when texturing.

By default, Maya has default viewport layouts. On the left side of the Tool Box, we can right-click on any of them and choose instead the one we like directly from the list. Or select Edit Layouts from the same list below and create your own.

Animation

Quite a convenient thing for animation without any problems. Allows you to automatically set keys when changing time and attribute values. Turn on autokey, set the key to an attribute (eg y-axis rotation), then go to new frame to Time Slider and change the attribute value. Maya itself will set the key to the new value.

At first glance, it might seem that this button should have been called “animate beautifully” - who wouldn’t dream of something like that? Unfortunately, not everything is so simple, but autokey can be used, for example, to automatically set key frames in rig control, and only then make minor adjustments, adding endless “s”.

Moving the keys onto the Time Slider

During the animation process, we manipulate the above-mentioned key frames in every possible way: moving them, copying/pasting them…. All this can be done directly on the Time Slider: hold Shift, right-click and drag, highlighting the key you need. Your selection will be highlighted in red. Using the manipulators, you can move the key to the right or left, and by right-clicking, you can open a menu with the actions “Cut, Copy, Paste,” etc.

In order to copy a key, you can also select a key frame on the Time Slider, hold down CTRL, click with the middle mouse button and drag the “copy” to the desired frame and conclude by pressing S.

Adjusting Time Slider

When animating, most often we return our gaze to the Time Slider. For convenience, this part of the interface can be customized: in Window ->Settings/Preferences->Preferences, find the Time Slider item and put 2x in the Height column. Now your vision is saved!

Scaling the animation

Perhaps someday you will need to make your finished animation 20% slower. This can be easily done in the Graph Editor. The example below shows a ball animation, but the same technique can be applied to any animation. If we need to slow down or speed up the animation, we select the curves we need and arm ourselves with the Region Scale Tool. We select the area and a gray box appears with manipulators that allow us to do whatever we want with the curve segment.

Editable motion trail

This is incredible handy tool for constructing and adjusting movement, for example, along an arc. The Animate->Create Editable Motion Trail command will create a red path in the viewport on which each key frame will be located. The red line shows the trajectory of your subject, plus you can edit this trajectory right in the viewport!