We will begin by learning about some of the different map types that we can use in our shading networks, such as bump maps, displacement maps, as well as transparency and opacity maps. We will also learn how to layer and composite multiple textures together within our shading networks, we will learn how to interactively mix and combine multiple materials on the same object, we will learn how shader compounds can be used to organize our Render Tree networks, and many additional topics that will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Softimage Render Tree. If this is your first time working with materials and textures in Softimage, we highly recommend viewing our 'Beginner's Guide to Shading Networks in Softimage' before attempting to go through this course. This Beginner's Guide will teach foundational workflows and terminology that are important for you to understand before attempting to view this tutorial.

This tutorial will guide you through the entire start-to-finish process of building your ICE tree simulations and rendering the final results, with special emphasis on the concepts and workflows that you can incorporate into your own Softimage projects. We will learn how to create ICE trees and add dynamic forces such as wind and gravity to our simulations, we will learn how textures can be used to drive particle appearance and behavior, we will learn how to incorporate realistic light dispersion and absorption properties into our ICE volume particles, as well as many additional features, techniques, and workflows that will prove to be invaluable to all Softimage users who wish to use ICE tree simulations in their own projects.

We'll start the tutorial by giving you the foundational skills and vocabulary you'll need in order to move around within Softimage, and then we'll jump right into the Modeling section of the tutorial. After completing the Modeling section, you'll get the chance try your hand at Texturing, Rigging, Animation, ICE Dynamics, and finally, Lighting and Rendering your own animation. Our goal is not to weigh you down with technical information, but rather to help you develop good workflow habits and allow you to reach a point where you can be very comfortable using Softimage.

Having a solid understanding of the features of mental ray is a crucial step toward becoming an efficient and productive rendering artist in Softimage. We will begin our tutorial by learning several methods for simulating realistic indirect lighting in Softimage, such as global illumination, final gather, as well as Importons and Irradiance Particles. We will also explore the use of caustics to simulate the light patterns created as light passes through refractive surfaces. In addition, we will also explore Image-based lighting techniques, camera and environment shaders, utilizing render passes and render channels, as well as many other tools and techniques that will allow you start rendering high quality work for a multitude of projects.

Understanding how the various lighting tools in Softimage work and behave is a very important skill for anyone who is getting started with this 3D application. In this series of tutorials, we will discuss the different types of 3D lights found in Softimage, and methods for easily aiming and controlling your lights. We will also explore some of the specialized attributes found in certain light types, we will discuss the different types of shadows available in Softimage, we will see how we can add depth and mood to our scenes though the use of volumetric light rays, as well as many other lighting tools and concepts that will help you establish a solid foundation in Softimage.

This tutorial is designed for users who are just getting started with rendering in Softimage, so we will not be focusing heavily on using lights, materials or recipes to give your render a specific look. Instead, our focus will be on helping you build a strong foundational knowledge of rendering in Softimage by talking about many of the key tools, features and concepts that every rendering artist in Softimage really needs to be familiar with. We will also learn how to resolve some rendering-related issues that you may encounter, and we will focus very heavily on helping you develop good habits and strong workflow practices that will be extremely beneficial to you as an emerging render artist.

During the course of these tutorials, we will discuss critical rendering topics such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) image-based lighting, tone mapping, gamma correction, as well as color profile management for your various textures. From there we will discuss the process of breaking up our render into multiple passes using Render Channels, as well as learning how to write any type of color information into our own custom render channel buffers. Once we have rendered out our passes, we will learn how Softimage's built-in node-based compositing system can allow us to make significant changes to our rendered result.

When trying to create highly realistic, lifelike characters, the importance of the eyes is often understated. In fact, the eyes are one of the most important aspects to consider when creating characters that truly look and feel alive. During this course, we will learn how to create highly realistic eye textures from scratch using Photoshop, and in a way that gives us a high degree of flexibility and control over the textures' color variations and other details. Once the texturing has been completed, we will jump into Softimage, where we will discuss shading and rendering techniques that can give the eye a highly realistic final look. Along the way we will be exploring many additional tips, tricks, and workflows that you will be able to use both in Photoshop and in Softimage to help create more believable, realistic eyes for your characters.

In the world around us, much of the light that we perceive comes from indirect illumination, or light that bounces off other surfaces to illuminate our surroundings. One of the ways that mental ray allows us to incorporate realistic light bouncing into our rendered images is to use Final Gathering. We will begin this course by learning about the underlying principles of Final Gathering, and how it calculates an indirect lighting result. From there, we will learn how to adjust Final Gather quality settings, how to reduce the amount of Final Gather flickering seen in animations, as well as many other lessons dedicated to explaining the various features and parameters used to control the Final Gather result. By the time you complete this course, you will have a much stronger understanding of the underlying principles of Final Gather, as well as a better understanding of some the common Final Gathering pitfalls, and their solutions.

We'll begin our tutorial by learning how to use global illumination, final gather, and the new Irradiance Particles as well as importons so that you can easily simulate the effects of indirect lighting and quickly render highly realistic scenes. We'll also spend some time going over how you can dramatically increase your rendering speed by saving and re-using indirect illumination data, giving you more time to focus on the creative aspect of the image. We'll also explore how you can use caustics to simulate the light patterns that are created when light passes through refractive surfaces. Then, we'll then take time to explore several specialized mental ray shaders like the architectural materials, subsurface scattering, and ambient occlusion shaders, as well as learn how we can use Render Passes and Render Channels to split our renders into multiple passes for compositing purposes.

Throughout this series of tutorials we use Softimage and mental ray to build our own studio light setup for creating clean, professional-looking renders. We will begin our light setup by placing our direct illumination sources and adjusting light and shadow parameters to achieve our desired result. From there, we will learn how to mimic the effect of studio light diffusers, giving us clean precise reflections on our geometry. Finally, we'll create a reflective studio environment that can enhance our indirect illumination results. Using the techniques discussed here, you will be able to create production-quality lighting that can be used for things like automotive rendering, product visualization, or any number of projects that would call for a studio-lit appearance.

In this series of lessons, we will take an introductory look at the FX Tree, a very powerful node-based compositing system that can be found right within the Softimage application. We will begin by learning how to access the FX Tree within Softimage, as well as highlighting the tight integration between the Softimage render settings and the FX Tree. We will see how the FX tree can automatically retrieve all of our rendered passes and channels generated by Softimage, and then we will use several of the compositing tools found in the FX tree to re-assemble and significantly alter the look of our final composite. With the FX Tree, we are no longer forced to use external compositing packages; we can perform complex compositing tasks, apply advanced filters and color correction effects, as well as making many other adjustments without ever having to leave the Softimage application.

In this series of lessons we will explore workflows for creating a realistic island scene using Softimage and Photoshop. We will begin by setting up our various lights, materials, and shadowing effects within Softimage, giving us a good foundation for adding further details in Photoshop. We will bring our rendered image into Photoshop and add details such as shaded foliage, enhancing shadows and highlights, creating more natural weathering and erosion patterns, atmospheric effects, and much more. Using these techniques, we will be able to use both Softimage and Photoshop to create a finished image much faster, and with more control than if we tried to use only one of these applications.

The mental ray Production Shaders offer us a completely new arsenal for increasing render performance, integrating 3d with live action, easier compositing, and many other advanced rendering features. Through these lessons, we will learn how these production shaders can be used for a variety of purposes, such as adding nearly instantaneous motion blur to our rendered images, seamlessly integrating our 3d art into a live-action plate, achieving more accurate compositing results in an external application, and much more. Using these shaders, we now have access to mental ray features that will allow us to render our images faster, with a much higher level of control, and with much higher quality.

Popular highlights include: In-depth Overview of XSI Interface; Navigation and Tools; Customizing User Experience; Polygon Modeling Workflows; Extruding Faces and Edges; Extracting Geometry; Assigning Materials and Textures; Material Manager; Creating Shader Networks with Render Tree; Texture Layer Editor; UV Projections and Sub-projections; Creating Custom Shelves and Toolbars; Rotoscope Preparation; Lights and Shadow Types; Creating ICE Tree Networks; Applying Dynamic Forces to ICE Particles; Building Particle Volume Shaders for Rendering; Deformers; Path Animation; Parenting Objects; Utilizing the Render Region; Automating Animation with Linked Parameters; Keying Panel to Create and Manipulate Keyframes; Understanding the Operator Stack.

Popular highlights include: Working with Real-time Shaders; Setting up Models and Skinned Models; Using XSI FX Shader Presets; Using SAS Bindings; Writing Vertex and Pixel Shaders; Constant and Texture Shading; Lambertian Diffuse Shading Model; Blinn-Phong Shading Model; Using Normal Maps; Render to Texture; Drawing with Sprite Batch; Using Pixel Shaders for Post Effects; Problem-solving Approaches; Shader Analysis; Working with Textures and Clusters; Publishing XNA Models from XSI; Consolidation Techniques; Creating Animation Clips; Fine-tuning looping animation; Gaussian Blur; Shadow Projection; Programming and Choosing Techniques; Edit/Delete Message.

Popular highlights include: Understanding Properties of HDR Images; Using 32-bit Color Space; 32-bit Image vs. 8-bit Image; Shooting Multiple Exposures with Camera; Bracketed Camera Exposures; Using Mirrored Ball for Environments; Naming and Organization of Exposure Sequences; Assembling Multiple Exposures into one HDR Image; Assembling Panoramic HDR Images; Removing Unwanted Subjects from Images; Color Correcting and Image Enhancement; Adjustment Layers for Image Alterations; Tone Mapping HDR Image for Low Dynamic Range Output; Setting up Image-based Lighting in XSI; Final Gathering in XSI; Setting up Multiple Render Passes; Rendering HDR Images from mental ray.

Popular highlights include: Overview of Light Types in XSI; Using Depth Map Shadows; Utilizing Raytrace Shadows; Decay Rates of Light; Area Lights for Accurate Shadows; Creating Custom Light Intensity Curves; Controlling Render Statistics for Geometry; Creating Volumetric Lighting Effects; Building Shaders to Simulate Visible Light Sources; Adding Environment Fog to Scenes; Simulating Realistic Camera Effects with Lens Flare; Altering Object Behavior in Render; Inclusive and Exclusive Lighting; Creating Gobos and Projectors; Practical Lighting Exercises and Scenarios.

Popular highlights include: Hair Overview; Hair Styling; Hair Based on Curves; Growing and Scalping Techniques; Brush and Cut Tools; Scale, Puff and Stand Tools; Popping Hairs and Attenuation; Connect Maps; Dynamic Setups; Displacement Effects; Simulating Hair Curves with Cloth; Hair and Forces; Alternative uses with Hair Instancing; Transfer Hair.

Popular highlights include: Emitting Photons from Light Sources; Fine-tuning Global Illumination Results; Smoothing Global Illumination Results with Final Gather; Using Architectural Materials in XSI; Overriding Photon Properties; Adding Realism with Ambient Occlusion; Utilizing Multi-bounce Final Gather as GI Alternative; Outputting Images to 32-bit .EXR Format; Modifying Geometry for Optimal Global Illumination; Setting up Render Passes in XSI; BSP Memory Optimization Techniques; Using Custom XSI Shaders; Compositing Rendered Passes in External App; Adjusting Exposure Settings.

Popular highlights include: Setting Up Rotoscopes; Working with Different Surface Meshes; Polygon Modeling Techniques; Extruding Faces & Edges; Extracting Geometry; Assigning Materials & Textures; Working with Texture Layer Editor; Creating & Modifying UVs with Texture Projections; Utilizing Deformers; Parenting Objects into Animation-friendly Hierarchy; Optimizing Workflow with Keying Panel; Automatic Movement with Path Animation; Setting and Modifying Keyframes with Animation Editor; Understanding the Material Manager; Efficiently UV Mapping; Exploring Various Light and Shadow Types; Applying Rendering Techniques; Developing Shader Networks in Render Tree; Creating Smoke Effects with Particles.

Popular highlights include: Normal Maps; Occlusion Maps; Depth Maps; UV Layout; Implementing Ultimapper; Painting Textures in Photoshop; Baking Indirect Lighting and Shadows into Texture Maps; Game-Friendly Animation Rigs; Adjusting Envelope Weights; Walk Cycle Animation; Exporting Game Assets to OGRE; C++ Programming; Real-time Normal Mapping; Real-time Parallax Mapping; Polygon Reduction Tool; * XSI Essentials and higher is recommended for several lessons.

Popular highlights include: Polygon Modeling; Projection Master; Morph Targets; UV Mapping Techniques; Advanced Geometry Tools; Rendering with mental ray; Geometry Sculpting; Displacement maps; Cavity Maps; Normal Maps; Brushes.

Popular highlights include: Render Tree Overview; Bump Map Generators; Displacement Maps; Texture Projections; Mix Nodes; Advanced Texture Placement; Volumetric Effects with Light Shaders; Layering Textures; Ambient Occlusion Shader; Material Editor.

Popular highlights include: Global Illumination; Final Gathering; Photon Emission; Render Speed Optimization; HDR Lighting; Caustics; Subsurface Scattering; Realistic Skin Effects; Cartoon-style Rendering; Depth of Field; Render Map; Lighting and Shading Nodes; Render Tree.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Altering the Y position of every vertex; Building a custom parameter for use in the shader; Setting the parameter up as a timer. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Using the CgProgram node to code with the Cg language; Coding with Softimage Semantics; Transforming vertex data. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

This feature lets you create lights for specific purposes - lights that only shine on the objects you want them to. This is an ability only available in 3D! Try using light associations while lighting your next project for more control over the scene. Topics covered in this lesson: Associate Light options; Different uses of Light Association.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Using Material Manager to create and assign materials ; Working with materials that need to be shared between multiple objects.; Setting up a faster shading workflow. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Lens Flares are traditionally the bane of photography, as they can ruin good photos and footage. In XSI that isn't a problem but it is a reproducible effect. Try adding a Lens Flare to your next render for creating a neat lighting effect. Topics covered in this tutorial: Attaching Lens Flares to spot lights; Using Flare, Glow, and Star effects and making changes to their attributes; Using the Render Region tool for previewing the Flare effects; A point light shines in all directions so the lens flare will always be visible. This can be useful to make a Sun in the sky. Lens flares are just one aspect of rendering in XSI. To learn more about creating rendering effects check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Real-time shaders are very useful for game development, pre-visualization, or fast rendering. Because the shader works off the graphics card, instead of the processor, there are more resources free for other parts of the scene. Topics covered in this video: Using real-time shaders like OGL13Draw and OGL13Shade with materials in the Render Tree; Generating texture coordinates as a reflection map; Creating a second draw pass to render the object twice; One layer over the other. Real-time shaders are just one aspect of rendering in XSI. For a step by step guide through all the aspects of creating a high-quiality render, watch our Rendering Techniques in XSI training.

Real-time shaders are very quick to render, but require a few changes to the render settings. Because the renders are so fast you can fake an anti-aliasing effect by rendering at double the size. Try using real-time shaders for a faster rendering workflow. Topics covered in this tutorial: Changing the render background color; Using the Render options to set the correct render engine; Rendering to file; Using the FX tree to fake anti-aliasing. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Plugging a Rounded Corners node into a material; Changing the Rounded Corners parameters for different object sizes; Using Rounded Corners with multiple objects. Gain a complete understanding of XSI with HDRI Workflow with XSI and Photoshop, an in-depth guide to creating and using HDR Images for a multitude of scenarios and projects.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Drawing a Render Region; Using the Render Compare feature; Saving a Memo; Moving the Render Compare divider; Reverting the scene to a saved Memo. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Displacement maps add detail to renders by moving vertices based on a texture. Unlike bump maps, the changes are seen by the lighting information of the scene, and are accurately rendered. This allows you to add a stunning amount of detail to your renders with only a simple texture. Topics covered in this tutorial: Using the Render tree to connect a texture to a material's displacement; Improving displacements by adjusting Geometry Approximation properties. More information on XSI check out Introduction to XSI 7, a complete introductory guide to learning the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, rigging, rendering, and a production-proven workflow to ICE.

The architectural material is great for simulating many different surface types. With the numerous parameters included in the architectural material, you have much more control over every aspect of the final result. This material even has built-in ambient occlusion. Topics covered in this tutorial: Using the Material Manager; Plugging the architectural material into a shader; Changing diffuse properties; Facing Reflectivity versus Perpendicular Reflectivity; Learning various Transparency parameters. For a comprehensive guide to learning XSI Hair check out Introduction to XSI Hair, an in-depth resource to learning how to create, style, texture, render, and dynamically drive hair.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating a Sky Shader; Connecting a Physical Sun into a Light Shader; Using Final Gather; Changing the Horizon; Editing the Physical Sky pass; Using Simple Tone Mapping to tweak the final result. To learn more about animation in XSI check out Introduction to Animation in XSI, an essential to learning the essentials of animation and creative approaches.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Accessing low level ray tracing information; Using the Scalar State node to get a wireframe render result; Utilizing the Render Tree; Setting up shaders. For a comprehensive overview of XSI check out the XSI Extreme Bundle, a complete library of project-driven training with interactive lessons, proven tips and tricks, and advanced techniques to learning XSI.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating a shading network for a normals pass; Assigning a new material to our character; Creating conversion nodes; Using Vector Map nodes. Gain a complete understanding of lighting in Maya with Introduction to Lighting in XSI, an essential guide to learning time-saving techniques for adding greater realism when rendering.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Retexturing an object using the FX Tree; Pulling in and visualizing the Default pass; Using a Crop node to resize an object; Compositing onto a Defuse pass; Updating the Pixel Parser. Gain a complete understanding of lighting in Maya with Introduction to Lighting in XSI, an essential guide to learning time-saving techniques for adding greater realism when rendering.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Setting up a simple object; Rendering the UV pass of an object; Applying a texture to an object using the FX Tree. More information on XSI check out Introduction to XSI 7, a complete introductory guide to learning the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, rigging, rendering, and a production-proven workflow to ICE.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Applying specialized expressions; Effecting the pixels of input clips; Manipulating pixels based on our own rules; Utilizing the Pixel Parser node. More information on XSI check out Introduction to XSI 7, a complete introductory guide to learning the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, rigging, rendering, and a production-proven workflow to ICE.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Using mental ray assemblies; Load and unloading assets; Speeding up your render time; Dropping and duplicating StandIns. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Planar Projecting; UV Mapping; Applying Sub-projections; Moving and Scaling UVs. Learn more about XSI with UV Layout in XSI, a complete guide to saving time and easily learning fundamentals of UV layout.

Rendering animations into image sequences is an industry-proven method of rendering. It might seem easier to render directly into a movie file, but rendering into an image sequence has numerous advantages. You can view the render as it happens a great way to spot any problems with a render before it finishes. Editing in a compositing program allows you to fix your images in post. Finally, if the computer crashes before the rendering is finished, all the images created up to that point are usable - something that is not possible when rendering to a movie file. Topics covered in this tutorial: Changing Render Options; Controlling the Start and End frames of the render; Changing the image format; Setting up the render camera format. More information on rendering in XSI check out Rendering Techniques in XSI, an in-depth resource compositing using the integrated FX Tree and rendering in XSI.