Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting- P9: I should stress that I am self-taught. In 1994, I sat down at a spare seat of Alias PowerAnimator and started hacking away. After several years and various trials by fire, 3D became a livelihood, a love, and an obsession. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to work with many talented artists at Buena Vista Visual Effects and Pacific Data Images. In 2000, I switched from PowerAnimator to Maya and have since logged tens of thousands of hours with the subject of this book | Figure The colors of two abstract shapes are controlled by a Distance Between utility. This scene is included on the CD as . A QuickTime movie is included as . 219 TYING INTO NONMATERIAL NODES Creating Simulated Propeller Spin A spinning plane propeller is basically a blurred disc. Although the prop is visible with the correct point-of-view or proper frame rate its shape is generally indistinct. You can emulate a spinning propeller in Maya by having a propeller disc drive its own transparency. For example in Figure a NURBS disc is animated rotating from 0 to 10 000 degrees in Z over a period of 90 frames. 220 CHAPTER 7 AUTOMATING A SCENE WITH SAMPLER NODES Model courtesy of Jason Martin Figure A NURBS disc serves as a spinning propeller. The opacity flicker is driven by its own geometry. The yellow arrow indicates the point at which Maya inserts a unitConversion node. A simplified version of this scene is included on the CD as . A QuickTime movie is included as . The rotateZ of the disc s transform node is connected to the inputlX of a multi-plyDivide node named multiplyDividel. The outputX of multiplyDividel is connected to the inputlX of a second multiplyDivide node named multiplyDivide2. The Input2X of multiplyDividel is set to . The Input2X of multiplyDivide2 is set to . This sequence converts a potentially large rotation value into an extremely small one. The outputX of multiplyDivide2 is connected to the offsetU of the place2dTexture node belonging to a fractal texture node. Thus the rotation of the disc automatically pushes the fractal texture node in the U direction. The Repeat UV of the place2dTexture node is set to which reveals only a small section of the fractal. The custom settings for the fractal texture node are as follows Ratio Frequency Ratio l0 Bias Filter 5 These adjustments create a softer version of the fractal pattern. The outColor of the fractal node
