Get $500+ of the best After Effects files, video templates and music for only $20!

Browsing Author

Dimitar Ivanov Katerov

My name is Dimitar Katerov, I'm a last year student here in my home town of Sofia/Bulgaria.

Create A Realistic Explosion In Maya Using Maya Fluids

Create A Realistic Explosion In Maya Using Maya Fluids

Maya fluids gives you the tools to simulate any kind of smoke, fire, water, explosions, wind effects etc. and is a very powerful tool for every FX artist. The fluid simulations and shading can be as different as night and day, but they rely on the same attributes which you’ll better understand after completing this tutorial.

You’ll learn to animate and shade fluids, understand all of the major attributes, learn how adding fields will allow you to gain better control over your simulation, and how to light and render the final animation.

Quick Tip: MentalRay Proxies

Quick Tip: MentalRay Proxies

In today’s quick tip, Dimitar Katerov will explain what proxy objects are, and how they can be used to render an insane amount of polygons in a single scene. If you’ve ever gone through the pain inducing task of trying to render a scene with a few hundred high-res tree models, then this quick tip may be the answer to your prayers! So fire up Maya and let’s get started!

Occlusion Shading Opacity Mapped Geometry In Maya

Occlusion Shading Opacity Mapped Geometry In Maya

Today author Dimitar Katerov will be showing us how to create a custom shading network inside Maya, which will allow you to get Occlusion information from opacity mapped geometry, something that is always a challenging task. Dimitar will also cover creating a tree using PaintFX, as well as the lighting and rendering setup using Mentalray.


This entry is part 3 of 9 in the Best Of Maya – Part 2 Session
Quick Tip: Altering Lighting Information Using B&W Adjustment in Photoshop

Quick Tip: Altering Lighting Information Using B&W Adjustment in Photoshop

In today’s quick tip, new Cgtuts+ author Dimitar Katerov shows us how to alter lighting information by Black & White Adjustment in Photoshop. This allows you to change the appearance of a texture or a 3D render by easily tweaking the light to a particular color range in your image. This is an extremely useful technique when working with bump and specular maps. Let’s take a look!