Datasheet
Project: Assigning Materials 11
an incorrect face, deselect it by Ctrl+clicking. After all the floor faces are selected,
return to the Hypershade window, RMB+click the new Blinn material, and choose
Assign Material To Selection from the marking menu.
3. In a view panel, select the entire Light_Box. This deselects the floor faces and selects
the remaining faces. Return to the Hypershade and assign the selected faces to the
new Surface Shader material.
Organizing the Hypershade
As you work with the Hypershade, it’s important to keep the resulting contents orga-
nized. The easiest way to achieve this is to name the materials clearly. For example, name
each material after the real-world substance it’s supposed to replicate. Thus, Chrome
and Foam are useful names. You can also
include the name of the surface a mate-
rial is assigned to. For example, you might
use Plastic_Junction or Leather_Ear_Pad.
Avoid generic names that may become
confusing in the long run. For example,
it might not be clear which surfaces are
assigned to Plastic1, Plastic2, and Plastic3.
One trick is to imagine that your scene
will be handed off to another animator;
if the materials are named clearly, the
animator will have no problem navigat-
ing the Hypershade and determining how
the materials are assigned. For example,
Figure 1.12 shows materials created for the
headphones scene file.
Adjusting Colors and Transparency
After you’ve assigned materials to all the surfaces in the scene, adjust the Color attribute
for each material. Match the colors listed in Table 1.1 earlier in this chapter as well as those
illustrated in Figure 1.12. To access the Color Chooser, click the Color attribute’s color
swatch. With the Color Chooser, you can select a color by LMB+dragging the color wheel
handles or the R/G/B (red/green/blue) sliders. You can also enter values into the R/G/B
number cells. By default, the color scale runs from 0 to 1.0 for each color channel. You can
switch from the RGB color model to an HSV (hue/saturation/value) one by changing the
lower-right menu. After you move your mouse off the Color Chooser panel, it closes and
the selected color is placed in the swatch.
The Transparency attribute, on the other hand, should be left set to 0 (black) unless
a surface calls for the namesake quality. Of all the surfaces included in the headphones
Figure 1.12
Materials created for the headphones scene. Each material is assigned to
surfaces that share the same look. For example, the Wire material is assigned
to the Wire_L, Wire_R, and Cord surfaces. Note that the material names are
easy to interpret. A sample Maya file is saved as headphones-step1.ma in the
ProjectFiles/Project1 folder on the DVD. For a color version of the figure,
see the color insert.
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