Tutorial Videos
The following tutorial videos are aimed at students taking the Building Virtual Worlds course. They provide step by step instruction for real time 3D graphics content creation.
For additional tutorials not made by the Bamboo team check out these videos and these.
- Setting up Phong [Maya]
- Normal Mapping: High to Low poly [Maya]
- Normal + Gloss mapping [Photoshop]
- Ambient Occlusion Baking [Maya]
- Light Baking [Maya]
- Ninja Unwrapping [Maya]
- MultTexturing [Maya]
- Making Wood [Photoshop]
- Making Stone [Photoshop]
- Making SkyDomes [Maya]
- Vertex Painting [Maya]
Phong Shading in Maya for Panda
Watch VideoLearn how to apply Phong Shading, gloss maps, normal maps and transparency
TIP - this is the new way to setup materials in Maya for our Open Shader ArchitectureWARNING - you will need Panda3D 1.4.3 alpha2
phongExample.zip - maya, pngs + eggs
Baking Normal Maps in Maya
Watch VideoLearn how to generate normal maps from a high polygon model to a low polygon model.
TIP - Your normal maps should be named like your color maps but with a -normal. Ex: bear.png bear-normal.pngTIP - if you're into high poly modeling consider using normal maps on a low poly model instead
TIP - If you dont want to use normal mapping you can still bake Ambient Occlusion from a high to low poly model and achieve something that looks awesome
WARNING - Make sure to browse around the "Transfer Maps" settings or you'll be exporting 256x256 normal maps
Making Normal+Gloss Maps in Photoshop
Open tutorialLearn how to generate normal maps from a regular texture map
TIP - Your normal maps should be named like your color maps but with a -normal. Ex: bear.png bear-normal.pngTIP - be sure to read the specular map tutorial aswell
TIP - details about the normal map filter
WARNING - download the normal map filter
Ambient Occlusion Baking
Watch VideoLearn how to bake Ambient Occlusion in Maya 8. This can make your worlds have realistic lighting if used properly. If your worlds tend to look flat this can be an easy fix.
See an example of this in action
TIP - Instead of baking to vertices you can bake to textures.
TIP - Use the same method to bake light and color instead of occlusion.
TIP - Bake occlusion to characters and the world. Bake everything!!
WARNING Baking occlusion to textures may result in long render/bake times
Light Baking
Watch VideoLearn how to bake lighting + shadows into texture maps in Maya 8
TIP - Make sure to setup lights in the scene
WARNING - Don't forget to turn on depth map shadows or raytraced shadows.
Ninja Unwrapping
Watch VideoLearn how to unwrap UVs ninja style in Maya 8.
TIP - Use this when seams are an issue on the end of an objectTIP - careful with pinning things down, you may need to play with your selection and with your settings
Multi-Texturing
Watch VideoLearn how to multi-texturing for panda3d in maya 8
TIP - Use multitexturing for terrains or walls. Think of photoshop layers but as textures but each layer can be tiled differently! sweet!
WARNING - this is not for the faint of heart. Its long (5 minutes) and the numerous steps are easy to forget.
Making Wood in Photoshop
Watch VideoLearn how to generate wood in Phototshop CS2 with filters and effects.
TIP - This creates a basic wood texture, try other effects in photoshop to give it characterTIP - Generating textures in photoshop allows you to achieve higher resolutions than downloaded graphics
Making Stone in Photoshop
Watch VideoLearn how to generate stone in Phototshop CS2 with filters and effects.
TIP - This creates a basic stone texture, try other effects in photoshop to give it characterTIP - Generating textures in photoshop allows you to achieve higher resolutions than downloaded graphics
TIP - Make sure to create a square file in photoshop so you can tile to create a wall
Sky Dome
Watch VideoLearn how to make a sky dome in maya 8
TIP - Try to keep your skydome as low poly as possible without distorting textures, no one can see the difference between a 100K or 1K poly skydome.
WARNING - Make sure you reverse normals so that they are facing inward.
Vertex Painting
Watch VideoLearn how to paint vertices and do fake cartoon shading in maya 8
TIP - Vertex painting has been used in major titles like the original FF7 on PS1 and God of War on PS2. Its a great way to quickly paint a model for rapid prototyping while textures are being made.
WARNING - Painting vertices can increase your egg file size, use egg2bam if file size gets out of hand.
WARNING - The cartoon shading demonstrated in this tutorial duplicates models to achieve its effect. Keep in mind your polygon budget for your world before you do this for all your models.