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Paint Effects Daisy Flower Tutorial

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Maya Paint Effects



PhotoShop:
Paint a flower petal with an alpha channel. Save as a TIFF file in your Maya scene directory. Do the same for a leaf. They both should be oriented like this image with a few pixels below in the alpha channel. (This fixes a Paint Effects rendering issue.)
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Maya:
Select the Modeling section of Maya,  choose from upper left, status line.
modeling_module

Select Generate->Paint Effects Tool
Draw a simple stroke in the Persp View

In the Attribute Editor, select the third tab named brush2
     Change Brush Type to Mesh
Under Brush Profile
     Brush Width 0
     Softness 0
Under Illumination
     Check Illuminated
Up Under Mesh
     Check Per pixel Lighting
     Check End Caps
Under Tubes (Most options are under tubes.)
    Check Tubes
Up Under Shading
     Change Color 1 to green
Under
Tube Shading
    Change Color 2 to light green, this is the top of the stem color.
Under
Shadow Effects  Check Cast Shadows (Will not work for raytrace shadows, only shadow map.



Under
Creation (within tubes)
     Tubes per step 1  (This number will vary depending on your original curve length.)
     Segments 60
     Length Max 3
     Tube Width 1   .015  (base)
Under
Width Scale
     Elevation Min 1
     Elevation Max 1
Under Growth
     Check Branches
     Check Leaves
     Check Flowers
     Check Buds
Under Branches
     Split Twist .25
Under
Leaves
     Leaf bend -.5
     Leaf Twirl 1
    Uncheck Leaf Use branch Tex
     Image Name Select the folder icon to find the leaf you made in Photoshop.
Under
Flowers
     Petals in Flower 10 (You can always input a higer value than the slider.)
     Num Flowers 1
     Petal Twirl .1
     Make Petal Color 1 and 2  value 1 white
     Uncheck Flower use Branch Tex
     Image Name  Select the folder icon to find the flower you made in Photoshop.
Save your file
Under
Behavior
     Under Turbulence
          Turbulence Type  Tree Wind



Play the animation



Render Settings for Maya Software Render
Render Settings renderbutton.jpg
     Under Maya Software Tab
         Under Paint Effects Rendering options
               Check Oversample



Select a Prefab Brush from Maya
Select Generate->Get Brush... 
Under FlowersMesh select Tiger.mel
Draw a prefab flower.

To reset the brush: Generate->Reset Template Brush

Use the curve to move the flowers around the scene.
Use Windows->General Editors-> Hypergraph: Hierarchy window to find the curve.



Convert to Polygons for Unity or Arnold
Unity, Mental Ray and Arnold will not render Maya Paint Effects.
Use Modify->Convert->Paint Effects to Polygons->
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Select Quad output.
The Paint Effects history still controls the poly flowers, use the history to modify.



Arnold Notes
When rendering with Arnold, you will need to create a new shader for the leaves and the petals to fix the transparency issues.
Check off Opaque under the Arnold drop-down in the Attribute Editor
U
se the aiStandard Surface Shader, Hypershade window.
Select the petals
     Under Base, click the Map Button map_button.jpg across from Color.
          Click File and add the petal TIFF file that you used on your Brush
     Under Specular
, set IOR (Index of Refraction) to 1
     Under Transmission set Weight to 0
     Under Geometry,
click the Map Button map_button.jpg across from Opacity.
          Click File and add a black and white TIFF file, transparent = black.
Follow this same procedure for the Leaf.



Unity Notes
Unity surfaces are single sided by default, items that are seen from both sides such as leaves and flower petals will need to slightly extruded.

Select the petals or leaves

Select Edit Mesh->Extrude

     Pull on the blue arrow slightly, or type in a very small number


Check the UV mapping for all polygons



In Unity fix the Transparency Maps

Make a new Material
Change Rendering Mode
to Cutout


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