Did some really quick render test today with Mental Ray and Maya's ramp shader, definitely an improvement in terms of hardness of the edges over V-Ray. Soft edges can also be created too.
I've been testing debugging Maya Python scripts lately. Mostly focusing on free IDEs or editors such as PyCharm. So far this is one requires less setup in my opinion. This is mostly based off the remote python debugging functionality described here : Download and install Microsoft's free Visual Studio Code Install the official Python Extension Download ptvsd package as a zip Extract the ptvsd folder into your Maya scripts folder Open Maya and run (updated! Thanks Luciana !) import ptvsd ptvsd.enable_attach( address =( '0.0.0.0' , 3000 ), redirect_output = True ) Back in VSC, switch to Attach (remote debug) in the debug configurations and start it The editor should now look something like this You are now ready to debug. Note: here is the settings I use in launch.json Add break points, run your code and it should stop and populate the debug section of Visual Studio code when it hits a break point...
Been rendering the Maya ramp shader using Vray for the lighting and rendering test for major project animation. May be considering using other renderers as so far I feel Vray is not really designed for non-photorealistic rendering.e.g. the edge cut off is still softer than I wanted it to be. I tried to imitate this render setup but in Maya but have been unsuccessful so far, the VRay materials does not seem to map the colours correctly on the lightMtl or the geometry shadow color and fall off does not get affected at all by the ramp shader. One of the first tests piping outColor of ramp to VRay materials I may investigate further into geometry shadow falloff in VRay shaders later on but we'll see how others go.
Lately for major project, I have started looking into the Shotgun using the accounts given to start looking at pipeline. The artist permissions pre-set had very limited control, obviously, but I was kindly given access to a managers permissions account which I did some test setting up assets, shots, assigning schedules and customising pages. More work is still to be done with experimenting and planning our pipeline as well as starting to layout the various pieces of our project into Shotgun. In the mean time, I emailed Greg Culp, the lead lighting artist for the short film 'Feast', for some advice on flat looks for lighting and rendering. To my delight, he managed to reply and give valuable help for us which we will surely be looking into during look dev.
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