Testing, Testing...

     So i was playing around in Maya last weekend trying to learn some new things, and these are the test renders for the few things i learned and will retain without needing reference in the future. The first pic is of the Maya physicalSun and physicalSky settings for rendering. It's basically an extremely accurate recreation of the lighting effects of the sun and blur/shaprness of the horizon and sky. The 'Sun' is a 'Directional Light' (so it can physically be manipulated lilke any other light in Maya) and based on the rotation (so the Aim of the light) it will adjust the color of the light being emitted from the sun (so early morning blue light = 0-20° or something. Sunset reds = 150-180°.

     So the first picture is me messing around with that and Final Gather, which simulates the way real light bounces off surfaces and provides reflected light.

     The secong image is me messing around with a Maya brush (cityMesh) and combining it with Sun/Sky and Final Gather. For some reason, when you use Mental Ray (a renderer for Maya) it's default texture has high reflectivity - so that's why you can't easily distinguish all the buildings and edges. I didn't feel like changing it because it was just a test for the brush stroke.