URGENT: Art Test Presentation Renders need to be done in Maya?!

[Nerf Bat Ninja]

Hey there PC, sorry to post this as I'm sure it's been beaten to death,

Cutting to the chase. I'm doing an art test for my dream job, and I'm primarily a Max user, I am familar with Maya, able to model in Maya just fine...

So I modeled all the low poly stuff in Maya, zBrushed to get my high polys, baked everything down in xNormals. Now, going back to Maya and applying the textures everything looks like complete and utter rat shit. If I throw it in Max everything looks exactly as I want it to, I use (Xoliul's Shader)

This art test also limits what shaders we can use to the extreme basics, Blinn, Phong, Lambert, etc. So I don't think I could use Xoliul's Shader in Maya even if I knew how to.

I think I remember hearing that one of the channels in the normal map needs to be inverted?

I also setup the Normal map as a Bump Map, and then set that to Tangent Space Normal, and that makes things look a little better.

What I need is the basic shader network for a realtime render...
So a Blinn with a Diffuse, Normal, Specular (think I have that figured out)

And render settings for good realtime presentation. It seems like Mental Ray and all that jazz make my normal maps vanish.

And if you're feeling extremely helpful, a simple 3 point lighting setup. I've been using point lights but they make everything look like poo as well. Also what light would be used to get some nice AO? Ambient lights don't cast any shadows and also wash out my normals.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm dying here! :( :( :(

HEEEEEEEEELP ME PLEASE!!!!

ALSO, I can't post any WIPS because it's all confidential NDA stuff. Any generic game model will do, low poly, normal map, diffuse, specular.

[Slum]

Just email them back and ask if you can show in Max. Explain that you are a quick learner and can pick up Maya, but they'll be able to see your work better if you show them a Max render.

The people at the company are human too, and they will probably understand and not care at all.

And to elaborate for anyone else reading: If you have a concern about some detail over an art test, JUST ASK! The company would much rather you show your best work having all the proper information, than to show something screwed up because you misunderstood. Asking questions and getting clear directions is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of efficiency.

[EarthQuake]

Render your normals in Maya, Maya HQ + a Blinn material = win.

[Nerf Bat Ninja]

So rebaking all the normals in Maya everything should look swell with the viewport in High Quality mode? Then don't bother rendering just do a high res screengrab?

Will High Quality mode show lights, shadows, alphas and all that fun stuff?

[EarthQuake]

Lights yes, i'm not sure about shadows and alphas though. Hit... 7? to enable lights. I know alphas do show up, but how well they work is another question.

Not to toot my own horn, but this is just a straight maya screengrab with normals + ao, and a blinn material, with AA forced on in my video card settings:

http://www.3pointstudios.com/pub/brink/3PointStudios_Brink_Maya_ar02_01.jpg

If you're doing a character a simple blinn might be a bit lacking, but a little redish tone in the ambient would probably help.

[bugo]

yes, you can have shadows too:

1- use a spot light
2- on the attribute editor of the spot light use depth map shadow, set it up to be 2048px
3- set the filter size to be 5
4- go to the lighting menu and put "shadows" on and you should see your spot having shadows on the viewport 2.0 or HQ viewport.

Note: if you have Maya 2012 you can setup 16x AA easely too on the viewport 2.0 menu, have realtime AO and depth of field right there.

[tharle]

if its a games industry job have you considered taking it into an engine? i did an art test for a company that was after a still image and i used UDK as my render which they were pretty impressed with.

[PredatorGSR]

Normals don't display right in Maya renders as far as I remember, you need to view them using the high quality viewport setting. You don't need to bake in Maya, but you do need to invert the green channel depending on what you are used to.

[haikai]

Not sure what you mean by it looking like crap, but it could be that the green channel is reversed. You can flip it in photoshop or just select your mesh and go to the shape node in the attribute editor. Go down to the tangent space roll out and switch the coordinate system to left handed. Of course, you should be viewing your model in HQ mode in the viewport as others have mentioned.

[EarthQuake]

Normals don't display right in Maya renders as far as I remember, you need to view them using the high quality viewport setting. You don't need to bake in Maya, but you do need to invert the green channel depending on what you are used to.

No, you absolutely certainly 100% should bake in Maya if viewing in Maya viewport, Maya bakes look f'ing amazing when displayed with HQ viewport, because the tangents are sync'd etc etc.

Anything else is just asking for a lesser result.