IPR

This tutorial shows you Maya’s Interactive Photo-realistic Rendering system, IPR for
short.
In this tutorial:
■
Rendering in Maya Overview
■
IPR Workflow
■
Creating a Rendering Layout
■
Adjusting Shaders using IPR
■
Adjusting Lights and Shadows using IPR
■
Lighting Effects, Fog and Lens Flare
A Taste of Maya
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Note: Before you start: This tutorial requires Maya scene files. If you haven’t installed the tutorial files go to the “Try
Maya” section of the “Taste of Maya” CDROM to install.

Starting Maya: You can start Maya by double-clicking the Maya 2.5 Evaluation icon on the desktop or from Start
→ Programs → Maya 2.5 Evaluation → Maya.

In Maya: Once the tutorial files have been installed you will need to set the current project in order to access the
Maya scene files. To set the current project from within Maya select File → Project → Set... and Navigate to the
directory where you installed the Maya scene files. Select the directory: Maya_tutorial_data and press OK.

Rendering In Maya
Maya’s rendering system is the culmination of research and development stemming from a rich history of
worldwide efforts. Creating visually pleasing imagery or photo realistic representation of 3D worlds is the
ultimate goal of the rendering process.
In Maya you have many options for creating this imagery. You have complete control over how detailed and
exacting the renderer will behave. If you want perfectly anti-aliased imagery and highly filtered textures you
have the power to do so. If you want a lighting environment that includes atmospheric elements and lighting
interplay with a virtually lensed camera, you can achieve this too.
Typically, tasks that involve creating finished or specific rendering requires an interactive process. That is, you
tweak, you test render, you tweak, you test render. Getting fast feedback to you as you tweak is the point of the
IPR side of the Maya renderer. Using IPR boosts productivity, speeding up this process of tweaking, to the point
where you will find yourself using it exclusively for many tasks.

Rendering User Interface

Maya’s rendering system is best accessed using the Hypershade/Visor in conjunction with the Render View/ IPR
panels. The other UI elements you will work with include the Attribute Editor and Attribute Spreadsheet as
well as your Camera View panels.
Because you will be accessing these panels consistently it is strongly recommended that you create Layouts
utilizing these panels arranged to your taste. Avoid detached or floating windows that can get in your way and
slow you down. A sample layout using the Render View window and Hypershade/Visor panels is shown
below. This tutorial will step you through creating this layout.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

Rendering Layout with Hypershade/Visor, Render View, Perspective Camera also note Attribute Editor inside the Main
Interface.
This layout can be accessed by a shelf button or hotkey. Once you have your base layouts in place with shelf
buttons you can quickly jump from one configuration to another without floating windows and without having
to constantly open the same windows from the pull down menus.

Two Methods of Adjustment

There are two methods of working with the Maya renderer. Rendering preview by test rendering to the Render
View window or Interactively rendering using IPR.

Render View Overview

The Render View window (Windows → Render View) is where you test render your scene. This window will
allow you to create a test render of a single frame that is exactly what a batch or sequenced render will look like.

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Render View Window

The Render View window contains pull down menus at the top of the panel. These pull down menus can also be
accessed from the Right Mouse Button while your cursor is in the Render View window. There are also buttons
that quickly let you access often used functions.
To use the Render View window:
■
Position your perspective camera to frame your scene.
■
In the Render View window select Render → Render → Current(persp)
The entire Render View window will initialize and begin rendering in blocks.
■
Press the 1 : 1 button to view the image at the real size or actual resolution.

Note: If the Render View is scaled to a size other than the actual Render Globals resolution, the image may appear to be
aliased or jagged.

■
To render a region, LMB drag a box in the Render View window and select: Render → Render Region
Render in this fashion when you are testing the look of raytraced rendered effects and other rendering
elements that are not viewable in IPR.
The Render View window is also where IPR is accessed.

IPR
Using IPR is similar to rendering in the Render View window with the addition of an extra step, creating the IPR
render file.
When you IPR Render, you create an image that contains more information then just the pixel color and matte
information. This is called a “Deep Raster” image. Deep Raster technology is the process of keeping track of the
information that went into creating the pixel color, including lighting, shadows and material definitions. When
you adjust a related node such as a light or material only the changed value is recomputed as opposed to the
entire chain or graph which is normally evaluated during a regular render. This greatly speeds up the rendering
process for editing. This enables the Interactive portion of the Interactive Photo-realistic Rendering system.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

For most tasks that involve repeated tweaking and rendering, the IPR system steps in and speeds up the process.
There are some options that have not made it into IPR .... yet.
■
Raytraced shadows, refraction and reflections are not displayed in IPR.
■
Volumetric particle rendering attributes are not updated in IPR but surface shading can be tuned on a
stand in geometric object.
■
Displacement mapping, depth of field as well as 3D motion blur are not displayed in the IPR deep
raster based image.

IPR is Awesome for:

IPR lends itself to these traditionally time consuming activities.
■
Material attribute tweaking
■
Texture placement, Color balancing and filtering settings
■
Lighting:
Placement
Intensity and Fall-off
Fog Density and Color
Shadow Color and Intensity
Light Glow and Lens Flare
■
Reflection Map tweaking
■
Shader to lighting and texture interactions
■
2D and 3D texture attribute tweaking
■
Many more things...
Use IPR anytime you feel that you are spending too much time testing and waiting for feedback. IPR is the next
level of tuning after you have established your scene using the hardware display for texture placement and
rough lighting.

Using IPR Overview:

Here is a general overview of steps to using IPR. Later in this tutorial you will go through the actual steps of
working with a Maya scene.
■
Position your perspective camera to frame your scene.
■
In the Render View window select IPR → IPR Render → Current(persp)
The entire Render View window will initialize and begin rendering in blocks. This is the creation of the
deep raster image. This image file is created in the iprImages directory of your current Maya project. A
deep raster image can be quite large, a typical image file size for a 720 x 486 (D1) resolution IPR image
can be between 45 and 100meg. So take care that you have suitable disk space and real memory. If you
have limited system resources you may want to consider working with smaller resolutions.
■
When the IPR render is completed you are prompted to select a region to begin tuning. LMB drag select
a region to tune.
The region you select will be the area that is updated. This portion of the deep raster is loaded into
ram and cached for quick system access. The size of the region you select will determine how much
system overhead is needed.
■
In the Hypershade/Visor select the light or material you wish to edit, the Attribute Editor will update
to display the attributes associated with the selected item.

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Adjust these attributes while observing the IPR region updating.

■
Render your test image using the regular render view Render command.

Tip: You can stop a test render in the Render View window at any time by pressing the Escape key.

Learn to work quickly and load only the object layers that you are editing. Be conscious of the IPR tuning
options you have selected. If you are not working on shadows or glows, make sure these options are not
selected. You can control these options globally from the IPR section of the Render Globals window. Or from
the Render View’s IPR pulldown menu.
Also work at the lowest resolution that gives you adequate feedback.

Pipes in Tunnel

Scene File pipeSystem.ma

Scene file descriptions:
pipeSystem.ma: This is the scene file you will start with. It contains several layers of objects that compose a
subterranean tunnel.

Layers:
The elements used to compose pipeSystem.ma have been organized into layers. These layers can be made
visible by accessing the layer bar, Options → Layer Bar. To toggle the visibility of each layer press the RMB
(Right Mouse Button) on the layer button, and select Visible.

Layers in pipeSystem.ma
Tunnel Layer: This layer is the base geometry for the tunnel system. It was constructed from NURBS
cylinders that were trimmed and trimmed again with a cube to make the lower shaft and a lofted
surface to make the overhead shaft.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

Pipes Layer: This layer is the pipes that run through the tunnel.
Walkway Layer: This layer is composed of instanced geometry, objects that have been duplicated with
instancing option. With instanced geometry you can create a base object that when duplicated will act a
reference. Any edits made to this base object are mirrored in the instanced copies. The walkway has
been made very light, that is with as few objects as possible.
Light Layer: This scene is mostly composed using lights. Lights can give the objects volume and a sense
of weight. This layer contains the lights in the scene. There are point, directional and spot lights used to
create various lighting conditions.

IPR Example
The scene file you have been provided with is a typical setup. Your goal is to maneuver your camera around the
scene and frame up interesting angles and then render them. The objects have been textured and the lights have
been roughly setup. Feel free to experiment with the shaders and the lighting to create your own images.

Closeup of Pipes and lights

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Wide View of Pipes and Tunnel

1 Open pipeSystem.ma scene file

■
Start Maya
■
Select File → Open Scene...
■
Select pipeSystem.ma
■
Press Open
This file contains several objects and groups of objects:
tunnelGroup
pipesGroup
lightsGroup
walkwayGroup
instancedWalkwayGroup
Open the Outliner to view these object groups as well as lighting and camera objects.
These objects are actually groups of objects. In the Outliner you can LMB on the + sign to the left of the object
name to open the nested objects. These objects may be parents of other objects as well.
The tunnel objects have been texture mapped. Press the 5 key for shaded display, 6 key for texture shaded and
the 7 key for textures with lighting in the perspective view. Because these textures are mostly very dark you
will not see much in textures mode.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

Note: If your system does not allow you to tumble the scene quickly you should either restrict your viewing to wireframe
or hide some of the layers. When all layers are displayed in the shaded modes most systems without adequate
graphics memory will not tumble freely.

Render Quality
The pipeSystem.mb scene file has been set to render at a Preview Quality. When you test render this scene you
will see various artifacts such as edge aliasing and low resolution light fog shadows.
The scene file pipeSystemFinish.mb has had various Render Global settings and light attributes adjusted to
create a hi-resolution image that is representable of Production Quality. This file will take longer to test render
due to the higher texture sampling and edge anti-aliasing settings.

Display Accuracy
Display your rendered image at a 1 to 1 display resolution by pressing the 1:1 button in the Render View
window. If you are viewing a rendered image at a scale other than 1 to 1 you will see display artifacts from this
scaling. This can make an otherwise good looking image look aliased and chunky. This can be misleading.
Expanding the Render View window:
■
Make the Render View window active by LMB clicking in the window then press the SpaceBar to
expand this window to full view.
■
Press the 1:1 button to scale the image to actual rendered resolution.

Layout with Render View, Persp, Hypershade/Visor and Attribute Editor windows forming a Layout.

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to the terms and conditions which can be found in the setup.exe file in the Install Tutorials folder of the Taste of Maya CD-ROM.
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2 Create a layout for rendering

It is important to create a quick method of moving between windows and editors. Layouts in Maya give you
preset organizations of windows and editors that you can quickly select from a shelf or hotkey. In this section
you will create a layout for working with IPR and rendering in general.
There are also premade layouts in Maya available in the Camera viewport panel under, Panels → Saved
Layouts.
■
Select Options → Customize UI → Panels... from Main menu bar.
■
In the Panels window select the Layouts tab

Panels Editor with Layouts tab selected

■
Press the New Layout button.
■
Rename this new layout Hypershade/Render in the Name field and press Enter to validate.
■
Press the Add to Shelf Button

Note: If you want to delete a shelf item you can MMB drag it to the trash can icon on the right-hand side of the shelf bar.

■
Select the Edit Layouts tab in the Panels window
■
Select 3 Pane Left Split from the Configuration pulldown menu.

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Panels Editor with Edit Layouts tab selected

■
Select the Contents tab in the Edit Layouts section.
In Panel 1 Select Render Window Panel
In Panel 2 Select Hyper Shade Panel
In Panel 3 Select Persp Panel
Now when you select this shelf button your layout will change to this configuration. You may want to create
several layouts in this manner. Using the above layout you can work with only the Outliner as a floating
window. Many people use a hotkey to raise and lower the Outliner. Other people have layouts for the
Hypershade with the perspective view replaced by the Outliner. You can also create a layout that includes all
4 windows.
Toggle the Attribute Editor from a hotkey or from the Options → Attribute Editor/Channel Box

Render Optimization
Render Globals and Anti-Aliasing
Before you begin tuning with IPR you may want to review your Render Globals settings. Of most importance is
the level of Anti-Aliasing that is set in the Render Globals’ Anti-Aliasing section.
■
Window → Render Globals...

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Anti-Aliasing Section of Render Globals

Set Anti-Aliasing to Preview Quality for initial testing in IPR. When you are closer to final tests you can turn
up the quality to Production Quality settings. The pipeSystem.mb file has these settings adjusted for you. You
can adjust them to suit your pace and the performance of your system.

Depth Map Fog Shadows

Another setting that will have a big impact on render times in this scene is the Fog Shadow Samples under the
shadow casting light’s Shadows > Depth Map Shadows section.
■
Select each of the spot lights in the scene that are casting depthmap shadows and have a light fog
attached. (domeLightShape, northSpotShape, southSpotShape are located inside the lightingGroup
node in the Outliner)
■
Adjust the Fog Shadow Samples in the Attribute Editor for a smooth look. Each light has its own
values in the Attribute Editor which you can adjust. If you have multiple objects selected at the same
time, only one of them at a time will be displayed for editing in the Attribute Editor. You can edit
multiple selected items using the Channel Box.
When this value is turned down to 15 or so you will see chunkier fog shadows but faster render times.
When you are ready for a finished render turn this up to a value around 70.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

Render Resolution
When you are rendering in Render View or IPR you will want to work at the smallest resolution that will still
enable you to see what you are working on. In this scene file the resolution is set to 720x486 or Digital Video
CCIR601. But you can test render at other resolutions.
In the Render View window select Options → Test Resolutions → 50% Globals
This will select a test rendering resolution for Render View and IPR that is 1/2 the pixel resolution set in the
Render Globals Resolution setting. This is very adequate for working with most items in the pipeSystem.mb
scene.

Light Fog on northSpot

1 Tune the Light Fog for the norhtSpotLight

The junction of the tunnels has a shaft overhead that contains a spot light named domeLight. This light has a
light fog added to it and it is casting depth map shadows. The North and South tunnels also have spotlights,
mid-tunnel, that are casting shadows and have lightFog attached.
■
Select the northSpot object in the Outliner or Hypershade’s Visor windows
■
press f to frame the light. Pull your camera back to frame the spotlight with enough room to see the
extent of the cone of light being cast from this light.
■
Hide the walkway layer. RMB on the Layer button and toggle the visibility.
■
Render an IPR image (Window → Rendering Editors → Render View → IPR Render → persp)
■
LMB drag a region to tune that includes some of the light fog.
■
In the Hypershade/Visor window open the Lights directory by LMB clicking on the folder icon.
LMB select the northSpot icon in this folder if this light is not selected.
■
In the Attribute Editor open the Light Fog section found under the Light Effects section.
You can adjust these attributes or you can traverse the Light Fog attribute to the lightFog node by
clicking on the “Connection Arrow Button” on the right-hand side of the attribute.
The lightFog node allows you to adjust fog color and density.

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Adjust the northSpot Intensity and the Dropoff to see how this affects the light fog.

Closeup of Pipe Shading

2 Tune the Pipes Shader

The pipes in this scene are all being shaded by the same material. This material is a Blinn material. The Blinn
material is extra good at making things look metallic due to the specular highlight and control over this
highlight it gives you. This material has a texture applied to it to provide bump and specular highlight. Since
this material has more to it then just a plain material it can be considered a “Shader”.
■
Position your camera close to the central pipe so that you can see the effect of tuning this shader.
■
Hide the walkway and tunnel layers.
■
Render an IPR image
■
LMB drag a region to tune that includes pipes.
■
Select the metalBumpPipe material for editing.
In the Hypershade/Visor window open the Materials directory in the Visor portion by LMB clicking
on the folder icon under the Rendering section (not the Create section).
LMB select the metalBumpPipe material.
MMB drag the metalBumpPipe material from the Visor to the Hypershade work area.
■
Press the “Show Up and DownStream Connections” button in the top right-hand corner of the
Hypershade/Visor window.
This will display the related nodes of the shader you have selected.

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Questions? visit www.aliaswavefront.com/tasteofmaya IPR

■
In the Attribute Editor begin adjusting the attributes of the metalBumpPipe shader.
Adjust the Diffuse attribute
Note the effect the Eccentricity attribute has on the highlight. Work both the Specular Rolloff and
the Eccentricity together.
The Specular Color attribute is being controlled by a 3D texture.
In the HyperShade work area LMB select the bump3d node.
Adjust the Bump Depth attribute to make the bumps more defined or more subtle.
The metalBumpPipe also has a 3D Brownian procedural texture attached to it. This texture is connected to the
Bump Mapping attribute as well as the Specular Color attribute. This is a simple trick to get the Specular
highlight to follow the bump. By adjusting the metalPipeBrownian texture you are adjusting both bump and
specular properties at once.

Warning Lights Shader Glow and cornerLight lens flare

3 Tune the Warning Light Glow

You can tune shader glows in IPR. By applying a little incandescence and a little glow to a material you can
create nicely glowing surfaces. The walkway safety lights have had this glow applied to them as have the
windows on the vertical pipe.
■
In the Outliner open the Pipes Group.
In the Pipes group you will find another group called warningLight. Select this group.
■
Press f to frame current selection in your current camera view.
Position the Camera to frame the warning lights and maybe part of the pipes.
■
Hide the walkway and tunnel layers.
■
IPR render this view.
■
Select a tuning region around one of the warning lights.

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■
Select the yellowWarningLight material for editing.
In the Hypershade/Visor window open the Materials directory by LMB clicking on the folder icon
under the Rendering section (not the Create section).
LMB select the yellowWarningLight material.
MMB drag the yellowWarningLight material from the Visor to the Hypershade work area.
■
Adjust the attributes on this Blinn material and note the updates in IPR.
Notice the interaction between the Specular Color and Glow intensity.
Note the role that the incandescence plays in the glow.
Try negative and positive values for the Eccentricity.
Adjust the Glow Intensity under the Special Effects section of the material.
Change the Color of the material.
These attributes are all inter-related and require tweaking to find the right combination. IPR makes this
possible. Imagine trying to juggle these attribute settings without interactive feedback.

Lens Flare attributes on OptiFX node

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4 Tune the Lens Flare on the cornerPointLight

The blue corner safety light has a lens flare associated with it. Adjust these attributes with an IPR render.
■
Select the cornerPointBlue light (and press f to center the camera’s center of interest on this object).
■
Position the camera back from this light to ensure that the lens flare is caught by the camera.
■
Render an IPR image.
■
Adjust the attributes listed under the cornerPointBlueShape tab of the Attribute Editor.
■
Under the Light Effects section you will find an attribute called Light Glow. This attribute has a node
connected to it called opticalFX1. Navigate to this node by pressing the right-hand side button arrow
on the Light Glow attribute.

Lens Flare attributes on OptiFX node

■
The opticalFX1 node contains many attributes associated with lens flare, halo and glow. Experiment
with what these values do.
Because the Halo pulldown is set to None, you will not see a halo effect on this light and the attributes
associated with Halo will have no effect.

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5 Tune the Tunnel Highlight

Using the same workflow as above, select and tune the tunnelWallBlinn material. This material is connected
to the tunnel surfaces and contains some more interesting applications of textures and material.
There are several techniques used in this shader to achieve the look of a bumpy slimy surface. The way in
which this surface treats specularity defines much of it’s look.
■
Adjust the specular aspects through Eccentricity and Specular Roll Off attributes on the
tunnelWallBlinn material.
■
Adjust the Bump through several points including the Mask attribute on the tunnelStencil node and
the Bump Depth on the tunnelBump node.
■
Adjust the Specular Color from the Color Balance > Color Gain on the tunnelBrownian node.

IPR view of tunnel hi-lite, pipes and walkways hidden

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Finished Render of All elements

6 Render a Finished View

Now that you have tuned some of your scene it is time to render using the Render into Render View
workflow. Check to see how your IPR edits stand up to the final render.
You may want to work with the attributes in the Render Globals window to increase anti-aliasing. If
you have turned down your Fog Shadow Samples attributes on your shadow casting lights, turn these
back up to around 80 for a smooth render of the depth map fog shadows.
You can also open the pipeSystemFinish.mb file which has had these settings adjusted for Production
Quality.

CONCLUSION
The fastest part of a renderer is how fast a user can make a decision about their scene. Regardless of the
horsepower available to do the final render waiting to see the results of a complex and interdependent shader or
lighting setup can be painful. By seeing the adjustment in real-time or close to real-time you will be making fewer
test renders especially, at the critical period when you are just getting started. This greatly increases your job turn
around and quality tests up-front.
Test rendering in Maya can be done by two methods:
1. Render into Render View your selected camera then test regions after each tweak. If you are testing Ray
Traced renderings you will use this method to see how reflections, raytraced shadows and refractions are
coming out. Use this method to test 3D motion blur.
2. Render an IPR deep raster file and get fast interactive update on each tweak. Use this method when you are
tweaking shaders, lights, depth map shadows, shader glow, lighting glows and optical fx like lens flare as well
as 2D motion blur.

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Both of these methods have their strengths and weaknesses. But together they provide very accurate and fast
feedback on the final look of your scene.

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