Modelling & Rigging a Cartoon Parrot in Maya: Part 8

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

1. Baking Color Map

Step 1

Apply the color map. Open Hypershade window. Select 2D Textures group as shown in the following image.

Step 2

After selecting 2D Textures group, click on File node to add it in the work area. Double click on the file texture node inside the work area to open its attributes.

Step 3

In the File Attributes, click on Image Name folder icon.

Step 4

Browse the Body Color.PSD texture file which was saved in the previous part of the tutorial.

Step 5

Open FurDescription1 Attributes and Hypershade window side by side. With the file node selected, drag it with the middle mouse button and drop onto the Base Color and Tip Color slider one by one. After that, click on the Bake button.

Step 6

After backing the color map, render the scene to check the baked fur.

2. Apply Color Texture

Step 1

You have to apply the color texture map once again for the parrot’s body. So, with the Blinn shader node selected, rename it as BodyColorMat inside the work area.

Step 2

With the File2 node selected, hold down the middle mouse button and then drag and drop it onto the BodyColorMat shade node. Select Color option in the fly out menu.

Step 3

To see the texture in the viewport, go to Shading > Hardware Texturing and turn on the check box. Alternatively, press 6 on the keyboard.

Step 4

With the parrot body mesh selected, do right click on the BodyColorMat shader node. In the fly out menu, click on Assign Material To Selection option to apply the material shade on the parrot body mesh.

Step 5

The color texture is now visible on the parrot body mesh.

3. Smoothing Body Mesh

Step 1

Render a test frame. You can see the rendered output is not smooth. You need to tweak some values to make it smooth.

Step 2

With the parrot body mesh selected, go to Modify > Convert > Smooth Mesh Preview to Polygons command.

Step 3

Render the scene once again. This time you will find the mesh smooth.

4. Setting Fur Attributes

Step 1

Rename the FurDescription1 tab to FurDescription_Body, so you can identify it easily.

Step 2

Change the values of Inclination to 0.800 and Polar to 1.00.

Step 3

Render the test frame. Some more enhancement is needed to make it look like fur.

Step 4

Change the values of Length to 1.870, Base Opacity to 0.800, Tip Opacity to 0.500, Base Width to 1.00, Tip Width to 0.390, Base Curl to 0.500 and Tip Curl to 0.710.

5. Adding Details to the Fur Attributes

Step 1

After setting up the main fur attributes, it’s time to add details to the fur attributes. Inside the the Details panel and under the Base Color setting group, change the values of Noise Amplitude to 0.160 and Frequency to 10.00.

Step 2

Inside the Length setting group, change the value of Noise Amplitude to 2.00. In your case, you can change the values as per your requirement.

Step 3

Render a test frame. This looks denser than before. However you need to decrease the length of the fur and a bit of opacity.

Step 4

Inside the FurDescription_Body attributes, change the values of Length to 1.00, Base Opacity to 0.900, Tip Opacity to 0.200, Base Width to 0.900, and Tip Width to 0.300.

Step 5

Render the test frame. The fur is looking better than before. But the fur is not grown up properly around the eyes. This problem can be solved by the editing in the Bald map texture.

6. Exporting UVs for Re Edit Bald Map

Step 1

With the FurDescription_Body selected, go to Display > Hide > Hide Selection command to hide the fur.

Step 2

With the Polygons mode of the application selected, go to Edit UVs > UV Texture Editor.

Step 3

In the UV Texture Editor window, go to Polygons > UV Snapshot option.

Step 4

In the UV Snapshot window, locate and rename the file as Body outUV. Keep the values of Size X and Size Y as 2048 and then click on OK button to save the file.