1. 1© 2009 Autodesk Hardware Shade – Presenting Your Designs Hardware and Software Shading HW Shade Workflow Tessellation Quality Settings Lighting Settings Environment Settings Library Shaders Library Environments Creating Your Own Shaders Creating Image Files

2. 2© 2009 Autodesk Hardware and Software Shading Hardware Rendering Fast, interactive viewing of a rendered model Quality and Speed Depends on the Graphics Card in Your Computer Software Rendering Slower, higher quality, not interactive

3. 3© 2009 Autodesk Hardware Shade Basics What happens when you first Hardware Shade a model? The tessellated model has the Default Shader applied. You can choose not to show all the details in the window, such as grid, model, lights, and so on. The NURBS surfaces are tessellated into a polygon model of triangles. (You don’t see this stage on screen.) Lights are created, shown in the window as green icons.

4. 4© 2009 Autodesk Tessellation Tessellator: Original Fast Fast Fast Accurate Tolerance: NURBS 1mm 0.1m 0.01mm 0.01mm Low Medium High

5. 5© 2009 Autodesk Hardware Shade Settings Environment Setting up a virtual environment to create reflections on shiny objects and to catch shadows Turning Effects Off To speed up tumbling and viewing Lighting and Shadows Quality Settings Increased image quality ‘versus’ slower interaction

6. 6© 2009 Autodesk HW Shade: Quality Settings Shading Method Per Pixel offers a higher quality image but is only available with some graphics cards. Check if you have the option of Per Pixel. Tessellator Look at the difference on the edge of a surface. Quality This is the tolerance for the tessellator. Again look at the difference on the edge of a surface. If High is not good enough, you can choose User Defined and enter your own tolerance. Texture Resolution Look at the graphics on the dials to see the difference.

7. 7© 2009 Autodesk Anti-Aliasing Anti-Aliasing is a method of fooling the eye that a jagged edge is really smooth. The jagged edge is caused by the limitations of the pixel resolution used. The ‘smoothness’ is created by ‘blurring’ selected pixels around the edges. You can view the effects of anti-aliasing by enlarging an image created using the technique. Look closely at the edges of objects to see the effects. Anti-Alias Tools Software anti-aliasing gives you a better-quality result but does not apply while you tumble in the view. Hardware anti-aliasing works during tumbling as well but the quality is lower.

8. 8© 2009 Autodesk HW Shade: Light Settings Warm Cold Contrast Default All Lights Selected Lights Pre-Set Lights Lights You Can Adjust and Control Self Shadows

9. 9© 2009 Autodesk Lighting: All Lights When using the All Lights setting, you will be using the Light Objects in the scene. Directional Light Provides light from one direction, which will cast a shadow. Pick and Rotate the light to change the direction. Ambient Light Provides general ‘fill-in’ light. Each light has parameters that can be set by double- clicking on the Light to open the settings window. Lights can be modified using Render>Multi-Lister>Lights.

10. 10© 2009 Autodesk HW Shade: Environment Effects Show Background Off The default interface color is used. Show Background On The background color used is set in the Environment Shader. Ground Plane On This function enables the shadow and reflection effects which are controlled by the Environment Shader. Shadows Reflections

11. 11© 2009 Autodesk Show and Toggles Show The Show button on each window can be used to control which elements are shown on the screen. Typically use ‘None’ to display a shaded view. The same settings can be accessed using Window Display>Toggles (and set as a hotkey). User Interface Colors If you aren’t using the Environment Shader to set a background, you can change the interface colors using Preferences>Interface>User Colors. Transparency The transparency sliders on the Default Control Panel can be used to vary the display of elements.

12. 12© 2009 Autodesk Creating Image Files Saving Images By default, images will be saved in the ‘pix’ directory of your current project. So it’s a good idea to be disciplined about always setting the current project. Saving Views Use the Bookmarks to save views for creating consistent images. Image Size A larger image size will give a higher resolution image but will take longer to generate. File>Export>Current Window

13. 13© 2009 Autodesk Exercises EX1-HW-shade-quality.wire EX2-Lights.wire EX3-Ground-plane.wire

14. 14© 2009 Autodesk Shaders Creating Materials for Your Models The success of an image is a combination of the modeling, the lighting, and the shaders used to simulate realistic materials.

15. 15© 2009 Autodesk Working with Shaders: Visualization Control Panel Shader Library Some shaders and environments to get started with Tools for creating and applying shaders Tools for working with shaders and shaded views Visualize Control Panel The Control Panel at the left of your screen can be switched to a customized panel for visualization. Resident Shaders Shaders in your scene that will get saved with your model Settings for the selected shader Double-click on a shader to open the full shader settings window:

16. 16© 2009 Autodesk Working with Shaders: Multi-Lister Before the Control Panel was added to Alias, the Render>Multi-Lister was the tool for creating and assigning shaders. It can still be useful, particularly when using texture maps. Double-click on a shader to open the shader settings window. These are the most commonly used tools.

17. 17© 2009 Autodesk Shading Models Light SourceLambertPhongBlinn

18. 18© 2009 Autodesk What Are Environments? A ‘Fake’ World An Environment Map is a virtual sphere or cube with an image (or images) mapped onto it. The purpose of the Environment Map is to give shiny surfaces something to reflect. It is an efficient way of creating the illusion of an object being a complex environment without having to model all the objects (trees, deserts, buildings, walls, and so on).

19. 19© 2009 Autodesk Using Environments Using the Environments Each shader needs to have ‘Use Environment’ selected to reflect the Environment Map Standard Environments The standard environments provided use a standard 24-bit reflection map. Image-Based Lighting Environments An IBL environment uses High Dynamic Range images. The IBL environments may be too bright; adjust the Tone Mapping to suit your scene.

20. 20© 2009 Autodesk Shininess and Reflectivity Shading Model Only Blinn and Phong will give reflections. Diffuse Combine a low diffuse and a high reflectivity to give a mirror-like effect. Diffuse attenuates the color. Reflectivity 1 – mirror 0 – no reflections Use Environment This function uses the environment shader to simulate reflections in a real environment. Specular Color and brightness of the highlight Spec. Rolloff ‘Hardness’ of the edge of the highlight Eccentricity Size of the Highlight

21. 21© 2009 Autodesk Visual States Control Panel Shading In Alias 2010, ‘Visual States’ were added to the Control Panel. These turn on hardware shading with different pre- sets. The settings for Visual State buttons 1, 2, and 3 are stored with your user preferences. The settings for the last active environment are stored with the fourth button, the File State button, when you save your file. The settings are saved with the file, so anyone opening the file can set the environment to your last active environment using the File State button. Visual State 1 Visual State 2 Visual State 3 Example of File State Modify the settings for each state. Save the changes.

22. 22© 2009 Autodesk Exercises EX4-Object-assign.wire EX5-Create-shaders.wire EX6-Layer-assign.wire EX7-Library-shaders.wire EX8-Environments.wire

23. 23© 2009 Autodesk Projects P1-Table-chair.wireP2-Cute-car-.wire Learning Alias Book To learn more about rendering, including software rendering and textures, there are three exercises in the LearningAliasStudio.pdf.