Model, Texture, and Render a Bathroom Interior Design with Maya

The modeling and rendering of interiors is used in a great variety of industries, and creating result that is suitable for these big markets is a very big challenge. In this tutorial you will learn how to model, texture, and render an interior design of a bathroom using Maya. The modeling of the bathroom will be achieved using polygons, NURBS, and paint effects. The rendering process will be done with Mental Ray, using techniques that will quickly give you a photorealistic result.

Final Effect Preview

Click on Image to Open a High Rez Version

Step 1

Go to “Create > Cameras > Camera”.

Step 2

In the active view menu, go to “Panels > Look Through Selected”.

Step 3

Now you will be looking through the camera. Position it to the desired location.

Step 4

Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager”

Step 5

A new window should open. Scroll down until you find “Mayatomr.mll” and check "loaded" and "Auto load".

Step 6

Go to “Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings”.

Step 7

Inside the "Render Settings" window, change “Render Using” to “Mental Ray”.

Step 8

Go to the “Common” tab and change the "Image Size" to “HD 720”.

Step 9

Click on the button in the active view to see the size of the render.

Step 10

Adjust the camera so that the scene fits into the green square.

Step 11

Select the back wall of the scene.

Step 12

Move and scale it to fit in the rendering area.

Step 13

Go to “Create > Polygons Primitives > Plane”.

Step 14

Move, scale, and rotate the plane to make another wall.

Step 15

Go to the camera view to see if the plane is big enough.

Step 16

Select the back wall and go to “Edit > Duplicate”.

Step 17

Move the plane behind the camera so it is not visible in the render (this plane will be used later to create a reflection for the mirror).

Step 18

Go to “Create > Lights > Area Light”.

Step 19

Position, scale, and rotate the area light to match the geometry of the scene.

Step 20

Go to the "Attributes Editor" of the light, change its name, and decrease the “Intensity” to 0.083.

Step 21

Scroll down to the "Shadows" section, activate “Use Ray Trace Shadows”, and change the “Shadow Rays” to 15.

Step 22

Make sure you are looking through the correct camera.

Step 23

At the view menu, go to “View > Bookmarks > Edit Bookmarks…”.

Step 24

Inside the “Bookmark Editor” window, create a new bookmark so the position of the camera is saved in case you accidentally move it.

Step 25

Go to “Create > Lights > Area Light”.

Step 26

Move, scale, and rotate the light to be in the same position as in the image below.

Step 27

Select the light and go to its "Attributes Editor". Name it, and change the “Intensity” value to 0.265.

Step 28

Scroll down to the "Shadows" section, activate “Use Ray Trace Shadows” and change the “Shadow Rays” to 15.

Step 29

Select the light and go to “Edit > Duplicate”.

Step 30

Using the move, rotation, and scale tools, position the light as shown.

Step 31

Go to your “camera1” view.

Step 32

Go to “Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade”.

Step 33

Inside the Hypershade window, create a new “mia_material_x”.

Step 34

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and change the diffuse “Color” to white, the reflection “Glossiness” to 0.586, and the “Glossy Samples” to 25

Step 35

Scroll down until you find “Ambient Occlusion” and activate it.

Step 36

Find the "Bump" section and click on the texture button for “Overall Bump”.

Step 37

A new window should open. Select the “Grid” texture and close that window.

Step 38

Click on the button that is next to the “Bump Value” slider.

Step 39

New options should appear. Change the “Line Color” to a nearly white grey, the “Filer Color” to white, and the “U Width” and “V Width” to 0.004.

Step 40

Add this material to all of the walls in your scene.

Step 41

Open the “Hypershade” window again, and create a new “mia_material_x”

Step 42

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, change the reflection “Reflectivity” to 0.260, the “Glossiness” to 0.620, the “Glossy Samples” to 15, and click on the button next to the Color slider to add a texture.

Step 43

Inside the new window select the ”File” texture.

Step 44

Click on the folder next to the “Image Name” option, and search for your wood texture.

Step 45

Scroll down until you find “UV Coordinates” and click on the button that is next to the “Uv Coord” values.

Step 46

New options should appear. Change the “Repeat UV” value to one that works for your texture. My values are 25 and 10.

Step 47

Apply this material to the floor of your scene.

Step 48

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “mia_material_x”.

Step 49

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and change the diffuse “Color” to white, the reflection “Reflectivity” to 0.500, the “Glossiness” to 0.400”, and the “Glossy Samples” to 25.

Step 50

Add this material to all of the white objects in your scene.

Step 51

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “mia_material_x”.

Step 52

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and select the "Chrome" preset.

Step 53

Add this material to all of the metal objects in your scene.

Step 54

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “mia_material_x”.

Step 55

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and change the diffuse “Color” to blue and the reflection “Glossiness” to 0.660.

Step 56

Add this blue material to the scene.

Step 57

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “Phong” material.

Step 58

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and change the “Color” to white and the “Incandescence” value to grey.

Step 59

Scroll down until you find the “Special Effects” section and change the “Glow Intensity” value to 0.020.

Step 60

Add this material to your polygonal light.

Step 61

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “mia_material_x”.

Step 62

Go to its "Attributes Editor", name it, and change the diffuse “Color” to black and the “Reflectivity” to 1.000.

Step 63

Add this material to the mirror.

Step 64

Render the scene.

Step 65

The render should look too dark and the quality should be pretty bad.

Step 66

Open the “Render Settings” window.

Step 67

Under the “Indirect Lighting” tab, activate “Final Gathering”, change the “Accuracy” to 200, the “Point Density” to 0.100, and the “Secondary Diffuse Bounces” to 2 .

Step 68

Click on the “Create” button of “Image Based Lighting”.

Step 69

Click on the small button that is next to the “Create” button.

Step 70

The "Attributes Editor" should display new options. Click on the button with a folder to select your image.

Step 71

Render the scene.

Step 72

The lighting in the scene should look much better, but the quality of the render should still be very low.

Step 73

Open the “Render Settings” window.

Step 74

Under the “Quality” tab change the “Max Sample Level” value to 3, under the “Multi-Pixel Filtering” section change the “Filter” to "Gauss", and under the “Sample Options” section activate “Jitter”.

Step 75

Scroll down to the “Raytracing” section and activate “Raytracing”. Change the “Reflections” value to 4, the “Refractions” value to 4, and the “Max Trace Depth” to 8.

Step 76

Render the scene.

Step 77

Now everything should look pretty good except for the black mirror. To fix this, you need to create something that the mirror can reflect.

Step 78

Open the “Hypershade” window and create a new “Surface Shader”.

Step 79

Go to its "Attributes Editor", and click on the texture button next to the “Out Color” slider.>

Step 80

In the new window, click on the “File” texture.

Step 81

Click on the folder button, add your image, and apply this material to the back wall you created earlier.

Step 82

Render the scene.

Step 83

Now the mirror has something to reflect, but it should look pretty dark.

Step 84

Go the "Attributes Editor" of material you just created, and click on the button next to the “Out Color” slider.

Step 85

The "Attributes Editor" should display different options. Scroll down until you find the “Color Balance” section. Once there, change the “Color Gain” value to "R= 4.200, G= 4.200, B= 4.200". This will create a brighter color than white.