2009

The scene contains a still life with a fruit bowl. Other surfaces act as the floor
and walls for the scene. The primary light source is a spotlight. The spotlight
casts light through a vertical opening in the wall. Some areas in the scene are
directly lit and other areas are not.
Shading materials have already been assigned to the bowl, fruit, and other
surfaces. The apple and orange models are from the previous lessons. If you
want to see what other shaders and textures are in the scene, you can view
them by opening the Hypershade editor.
When you render this scene using Global Illumination, the effect you want
to achieve is to have the upper and lower regions of the scene receive indirect
light: you want to be able to view more detail in the shadow areas as a result
of the Global Illumination.
Render the scene using raytracing
To better understand the differences in a rendering performed using direct
lighting methods vs. global illumination, you begin by rendering the scene
using the mental ray for Maya renderer without using Global Illumination.
You start by performing some preparatory setup and then render the scene.
In this section you:
■ Select the mental ray for Maya renderer.
■ Set the quality setting for your rendering.
■ Set the image size for your rendering using the Image Size settings.
When performing repeated test renders, a good practice is to render small
images so the tests render quickly.
■ Turn on shadows for the spotlight in the scene.
■ Render an image using the mental ray for Maya renderer using raytracing.
Using the mental ray for Maya renderer
To use the Global Illumination feature in Maya you must render using the
mental ray for Maya renderer.
To render using the mental ray for Maya renderer you need to change the
rendering type from Maya to mental ray for Maya. You initially render the
scene without using Global Illumination.
442 | Chapter 9 Rendering