Over the past decade, computer animation has been transformed from something that only video games use into a legitamate art form and a staple in mainstram Hollywood.Three dimensional modeling has evolved in leaps and bounds into the photo realistic style that created the theatrical release, Final Fantasy.

The dominant 3d modeling environment in the market today is Maya, produced by Alias|Wavefront. This powerful piece of software is used by industry juggernauts like:

• Industrial Light and Magic
• Universal Pictures
• Dreamworks Entertainment
• Square Pictures

These companies are able to create amazing effects virtually indistinguishable from reality, but how?

Maya utilizes shading networks to associate the surfaces a modeler creates with coloring, textures and reflections. In the procedures section of these pages, I will explain how to create a simple shading network and apply it to a model. The process I detail will show you how to use shaders to take a model from:

	to
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© 2002 - Michael Pellegrin