Import layer masks in Mari 2
May 2, 2013
Lets say that importing masks in to Mari 2 created in other software, is something very common and all the texture artist out there do every single day.
I’m talking about painted masks in Photoshop or Nuke, or baked masks in Maya, Softimage or just cavities, occlusions and other important maps generated in Zbrush or Mudbox.
Using all these programs and more is something pretty normal in any VFX boutique nowdays.
When I started working with the first alpha version of Mari 2 I found a bit tricky the way to import maps generated in others software packages in to Mari as layer masks.
The way to paint layer masks in Mari seems to be pretty straightforward but as I said if you want to import a texture as layer mask you need to follow some steps.
I’m pretty sure that if you are a new Mari 2 user you can’t find how to do this before spend some time struggling your mind to figure out how to do this simple thing.
I spent probably more than 30 minutes to find this out and just realize that a lot of texture artist are having the same problems to find a way to do it.
So, follow these steps to import layer masks in to Mari and save your precious time 
And of course, if you have another fastest way to do it, I’ll be glad to hear it.
- Import you mask as new layer.
- Add a reveal layer mask to the layer that you want to mask with your imported map.
- Make a mask group.
- Double click on the mask group icon to open the masks window.
- Drag your imported mask layer to the list.
- Remove the previous mask created by default.
- Yo can invert the mask if needed.
- Done, your imported mask is working perfectly.
Base for shooting references.
April 11, 2013
I built this rotating base for shooting references for modeling and texturing purposes.
Seems to work pretty good with a wide range of sizes from small objects to people around 1.85 cm and 80 kg.
It has two diferent positions, for 8 shots (45 degrees) and 16 shots (22,5 degrees).
New checker rig.
March 27, 2013
This is the lighting checker that I built for my own use. Sometimes is quite handy to carry this rig on my bag when I’m shooting alone HDRI for 3D lighting lost in the mountains, in the middle of the countryside or any other environment with no help at all.
Normalize textures in Softimage.
February 25, 2013
Just a quick video tutorial where I talk about my process to normalize textures in Softimage. Spanish audio.
Do you like to see my tutorials in English? Send me a line.
Cheers.
Zbrush displacement in V-Ray for Maya.
February 10, 2013
There is always a bit tricky to set up Zbrush displacements in the different render engines.
If you recently moved from Mental Ray or another engine to V-Ray for Maya, maybe you should know a few things about displacement maps extracted from Zbrush.
I wrote down here a simple example of my workflow dealing with that kind of maps and V-Ray.
- First of all drag and drop your 16 bits displacement to the displacement channel inside the shading group attributes.
- Maya will create a displacement node for you in the hypershade. Don’t worry to much about this node, you don’t need to change anything there.
- Select your geometry and add a V-Ray extra attribute to control the subdivisions and displacement properties.
- If you exported your displacement subdividing the UV’s, you should check that property in the V-Ray attributes.
- Edge lenght and Max subdivs are the most important parameter. Play with them until reach nice results.
- Displacement amount is the strength of your displacement and displacement shift sould be half negative than your displacement amount if you are using 16 bits textures.
- If you are using 32 bits .exr textures, the displacement shift should be 0 (zero).
- Select your 32 bits .exr file and add a V-Ray attribute called allow negative colors.
- Render and check that your displacement is looking good.
- I’ve been using these displacement maps. 16 bits and 32 bits.
