Area lights allow you to cast light more naturally than directional lights and spot-lights. In this tutorial we'll take one scene and light it using only area lights and Final Gather.

You just finished your photo-realistic model of a car. You have asigned a blinn shader and you've cranked up reflectivity 100%. You're all set in mental ray with raytracing. You hit render and your car looks matted, no reflections.

In this tutorial you will learn how to take a 3d model from Maya into 3d Coat.

In this tutorial we'll explain how to do an interesting effect creating a car.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a rendering using Mental Ray, Final Gather, and an area light

In this tutorial I will explain how to use images for reflection use the mentalrayIbl.

This tutorial covers using reflection maps for reflections. In this tutorial we'll be making a simple fast rendering of a car that has a "faked" reflection.

This tutorial will teach you the differences of displacement and bump maps and normal maps and how to assign them to a shader and a model. This is just an overview tutorial on both subjects, and will teach the basic attributes of all of them.

This tutorial will get you up to speed in setting up a simple Final Gather scene.

What Is A Game Model?

In this tutorial, we'll take advantage of the capabilities of the IK Spine Handle so we can open a garage.

In this tutorial I'll teach you how to create a generic flower bud from a sphere.

MEL procedures are a whole bunch of scripts that are put together into one main script.

Mel Procedures part two

To enhance your Mental Ray rendering skills, it's not only important to learn how to set Final Gather and illumination, but also knowing how to set up the camera.

This tutorial is one of a 3 - part series. This tutorial will teach you how to use a volume shader connected to a camera.

This tutorial is the last of a 3 - part series. This tutorial will teach you how to use a environment node connected to a camera.

Okay - you've got your simulation just right, but now you want to freeze the geometry and turn it back into unstimulated polygons. This tutorial will show you how to do that.

In this tutorial I'll be teaching some basic techniques to light your scene using Maya software (default renderer).

Filters basically smooth pixels. Whenever you create a file node in Maya, you'll have a filter type option.

In this tutorial you'll learn the very basic technique of creating an animation in Maya.

hanging The Background Color Of Your View Port

This tutorial'll teach you how to make a chain, or a similar object, follow a curve.

Once you have learned to create a simple IK rig, the rest of the rigging tutorials you'll read on my site and other sites will be easier to understand.

In this tutorial, we'll teach you how to build realistic actuator movement. Set-up

This tutorial will teach you how to render a 3D animation.

This tutorial will cover how to make shelves and create Mel scripts to speed up repetitive tasks.

In this part, we'll be covering the creation of shelves and learn how to create icons for them.

In this tutorial I'll teach you how to make a light rig that will generate a nice, clean, soft overall light that's tinted green.

This tutorial will teach you how to model a basic face that can be used for cartoon or realistic.

Playblast are a necessity to a good animation. This tutorial will teach you how to use the Playblast to your advantage.

The outliner lets you see a list of all the objects in the scene. No matter if they're hidden, templated, or anything at all they will appear in the outliner.

his tutorial will teach how to use a quick select feature in Maya.

This tutorial will teach you how to use image planes to display your reference images in the Maya interface.

Rigid bodies can be used for a simulation such as a bowling ball knocking down pins. Rigid body dynamics are a great way to do quick simulations of objects that don't need to bend or break.

This tutorial will teach you how to dlete the smooth proxy and then mirror your geometry into one solid model.

Rendering outlines can be useful when creating blueprints or technical illustrations.

A lot of times in Mel you'll want to create a random number.

NCloth is the best way in Maya to simulate cloth such as flags, dresses, clothes, and banners.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a holiday ball from polygonal primitives

This will be a 3-part tutorial series on making objects react to other objects. This tutorial will be covering how to make a full body IK rig react with rigid body dynamics.

Occlusion is a powerful feature in Mental Ray (Mental Ray is a renderer that comes with Maya as a plug-in). It allows you to simulate perfect lighting without creating a light in your scene.

In this tutorial I'll teach you how to make a picture of a glass using caustics.

Transfer maps allow you to take one model and make another model look like that model through normal maps, displacement maps and bump maps.

This tutorial will be covering cool things you can do with the Maya interface.

Revolve takes a nurbs curve, spins it kind of like pottery, and makes a complete 360 degree object.

Duplicate. Duplicate Special lets you duplicate objects, change the transformation attributes of the duplicated object(s)

Camera bookmarks let you save the current viewing angle and all other viewing attributes.

I'm sure you all know how to use the automated create PSD network in Maya. In this tutorial I'll show you how to make it by hand in the hypershade.

This tutorial will cover creating a simple object from polygonal primitives. Also, basic functions of the extrude tool.

This tutorial covers basic polygonal primitives modeling with bevels.

This tutorial will cover how to make fireworks in Maya using the preset fireworks.

In this tutorial we'll cover in depth, basic boolean operations, anatomy of a boolean, where to use booleans, and common boolean errors

This tutorial will cover in depth the extrude tool and all of its functions.

Projects in Maya let you create a folder structure that contains all your scenes, textures, rendered images, etc.

This tutorial will cover how to get a model ready to be published on the internet and receive maximum ratings, for free or for sale. Also includes seller's tips.

This tutorial covers how to use the 3d paint tool to paint texture directly on your model in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to create text in Maya.

The hypershade in Maya is material headquarters. The hypershade allows you to create networks of nodes.

This tutorial will teach you how to convert polygonal geometry to a NURB surface.

This tutorial will teach you how to import Illustrator Curves (.AI) into Maya as NURB curves.

This tutorial will teach you how to use a better style of X-ray in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to set up an HDRI image in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to make shadows in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to enable raytracing.

This tutorial covers the basic light attributes in Maya

This tutorial covers how to import audio into Maya.

This tutorial series covers how to model, texture, and render a toy dragonfly. This tutorial is for at beginners. Part one is the base modeling of the Dragon Fly .

This tutorial series covers how to model, texture, and render a toy dragonfly. This tutorial is for beginners. Part two begins where part one left off. Please read part one here. This tutorial will be teaching more modeling techniques and edge loops

This tutorial series covers how to model, texture, and render a toy dragonfly. This part of the tutorial series will cover putting the model together, and UV mapping.

This tutorial series covers how to model, texture, and render a toy dragonfly. This part of the tutorial series will cover texturing and rendering

This tutorial teaches you how to inflate an object using nCloth.

This tutorial covers how to use the plug-in manager in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to set up a basic SSS Mental Ray shader.

This tutorial covers 5 cool tricks you can do using cameras in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to create lightning effects in Maya.

This tutorial will be covering how to use the texture viewing, fog, real time lighting, shadows, and high-quality viewport.

This tutorial covers normals, what they are, where they're used, locked vs unlocked, and reversed normals issues.

This tutorial is a 2 part series on display layers and render layers in Maya.

This tutorial is the last part of a 2 part series on display layers and render layers in Maya.

This tutorial will teach you how to make a live object and make a neat model with it.

This tutorial covers how to make a turntable in Maya.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a halftone pattern effect inside Maya. This tutorial is aimed at intermediate users.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a tree using Maya's paint effects. This tutorial has been written for intermediate Maya users.

This tutorial will teach you how to convert paint effects to polygons.

This tutorial will teach you the fundamentals of the way Maya animates.

A good start to any model will help increase your quality and modeling speed, in the long run. This tutorial walks you through the my workflow for starting a modeling.

This tutorial will teach you how to model a knife quickly, using Maya.

This tutorial covers how to edit pivot points in Maya.

This covers some tool settings that I found useful to help the modeling process.

This video tutorial covers how to mirror geometry on 3 sides of the base object.

This tutorial will teach you how to tear or rip nCloth in Maya.

This tutorial covers the differences between Maya binary and Maya Ascii file formats, also, advantages and disadvantages of the two file formats.

This tutorial covers how a Parent/Child relationship works and how to create one in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to permanently delete paint effects from your Maya scene.

This tutorial teaches you how to find distances in Maya.

This tutorial teaches you how materials work, and how to create materials in Maya.

This tutorial will teach you how to use a chamfer vertex function and an explanation of how it works.

This tutorial will cover how to save images from the render view in Maya, plus some advice on what file format to choose.

This tutorial will teach you two techniques for creating ropes, tubing, etc. with UVs in Maya.

This tutorial covers how to restore or reset parts of or all of Maya to its default settings.

This tutorial teaches you how to set up and use drive keys.

How to fix 5+ sided polygon automatically.

A video tutorial series on creating a cartoon ice crack in Maya.

A tutorial on how to model a soccer/football ball in Maya.