Making of “The Tunnel” in Maya and Photoshop – Day 2

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a fantastic tunnel scene in Maya, and then add some final lighting touches in Photoshop. You will follow Abed Ibrahim through his process of modeling, texturing, shading, and rendering techniques, and finally arrive at the spectacular result that is shown here.

This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1, or Day 3

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Step 1

Your scene should now look like the image below, which means you are ready for the texturing, shading, and rendering stage of the tutorial!

Step 2

Go to “Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade”.

Step 3

Create a new File Node.

Step 4

Open the “Asphalt_Floor.jpg” texture file.

Step 5

Repeat steps 2 – 4 for all of the texture files found in “Textures” folder.

Step 6

Assign the “Asphalt” material to the “Street” object.

Step 7

Select the “Street” object, and go to “Create UVs > Automatic
Mapping”.

Step 8

Go to the file placement utility “place2dTexture1”, and modify the settings as shown.

Step 9

Zoom in on the “Sewer” and assign the “Sewer_Floor.jpg” texture
file to it.

Step 10

Select the face, then go to “Create UVs > Planner Mapping”.

Step 11

Modify the following attributes for the “polyPlanarProj1”.

Step 12

Select the “Sewer” material, and
drag the “Sewer_Floor_Bump” file into its “Bump Mapping” attribute.

Step 13

Modify the “Bump Filter” as shown.

Step 14

Give a little ambient power to the “Sewer” material.

Step 15

Now select the top face of the “Sidewalk” object.

Step 16

Assign the “Sidewalk_Floor.jpg” texture to the face.

Step 17

Select the face again, and go to “Create UVs > Planar
Mapping”.

Step 18

Modify the following values for the “Poly Planar
Projection”.

Step 19

The sidewalk should now look like this.

Step 20

Create a “Cloud” 3D texture in the Hypershade window.

Step 21

Modify the attributes for the “Cloud” texture as shown. Be sure to use the eyedropper to pick the exact color.

Step 22

Select the “Sidewalk” material.

Step 23

Press on the “Cloud1” texture (sidewalk dirt) with your
“middle mouse button”, and drop it into the “Sidewalk” material’s “Ambient Color”.

Step 24

Select the sidewalk brick faces, and assign the
“Sidewalk_Bricks.jpg” texture to them.

Step 25

With the faces still selected, go to “Create UVs > Automatic
Mapping”.

Step 26

Go to the texture placement utility of the “Sidewall_bricks” material and
modify the following settings.

Step 27

Drop the “Sidewalk_Bricks_Bump.jpg” texture into the “Bump
Mapping” attribute for the “sidewall_bricks” material.

Step 28

Now modify these values for the bump utility.

Step 29

Modify the texture placement utility for the “Sidewalk_Bricks_Bump.jpg” as shown.

Step 30

Create another “Cloud 3D” texture with the following values in the “Hypershade” window.

Step 31

Drop the “Cloud” in the “Diffuse” attribute of the “sidewall_bricks” material.

Step 32

Create a new “Phong” material with the following settings.

Step 33

Assign the “Phong” material to the cylinder shapes located on the left side of the tunnel.

Step 34

Create another new “Phong” material with the following settings.

Step 35

Create a new “Ramp” texture.

Step 36

Modify the “Ramp” colors as shown.

Step 37

Create a “Sample Info” utility.

Step 38

Select the “Sampler Info” utility using “Ctrl + middle mouse button”, then drag and drop it over the “Ramp” texture, to connect two attributes together using the “Connection Editor”.

Step 39

After the “Connection Editor” window has popped up, connect the “Facing Ratio” in the left menu, with the “vCoord” in the right menu.

Step 40

Now select the “car_trace2” material, and drop the “car_trace2_transperancy” ramp into the “Transparency” attribute.

Step 41

Assign the “car_trace2” material to the long thin poly planes, located on the right side of the tunnel.

Step 42

Create a new “Lambert” material with the following
color, then assign it to the street lines in the center.

Step 43

Create another new “Lambert” material, change the color to white, then assign it to the street lines on both sides.

Step 44

Select the “Tunnel” object, then assign the “Tunnel_Walls.jpg” texture file to it.

Step 45

Change the material type to “Blinn”, and rename it “Tunnel_Walls”.

Step 46

Select the “Tunnel” object, then go to “Create UVs > Cylindrical Mapping”.

Step 47

The “Tunnel” object should now look like this if you turn on “Hardware Texturing and Lights”:

Step 48

Select the “Tunnel” object, then go to “Mesh > Sculpt Geometry Tool” and open up the option box.

Step 49

Reset the tool, then modify the following attributes.

Step 50

Begin sculpting the “Tunnel” object, changing the axis from time to time to create some light curls and bumps in the surface.

Step 51

Drop the “Tunnel_Walls_Bump.jpg” texture into the “Bump
Mapping” slot of the “Tunnel_Walls” material.

Step 52

Adjust the “Bump” attributes as shown.

Step 53

Drop the “Tunnel_Walls_Diffuse.jpg” texture into the
“Diffuse” attribute of the “Tunnel_walls” material.

Step 54

Now adjust the “Tunnel_Walls” material to look exactly as shown.

Step 55

Create a new “Point Light” with the following settings.

Step 56

Place the new point light at the end of the Tunnel.

Step 57

Optionally, you can delete the bottom half of the “Tunnel” mesh to reduce render times. To do this, use the “Cut Face Tool”, select the bottom half, then press delete.

Step 58

Open the “Render Settings” window, and adjust to the following settings.

Step 59

Switch on the “Quality” tab, and adjust the following settings.

Step 60

Select your “Renderable Camera”, then hit the “Render the current frame” button.

Step 61

We are done the texturing, lighting, and rendering part of the project. You should now have a render that looks something like this. Stay tuned for the “Post-Production” stage, where we will create some subtle lighting effects and finishing touches in Photoshop.

This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 3 or,
Start at the beginning – Go to Day 1

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Discussion 15 Comments

  1. Amila says:

    This is Maxxa tute . .. Please if you can do a video tutorial on next .

    I hope your next ture will be awasome.

    please do more Maya tutorials to CGTutsplus. its awasome . .

    thank you for your tute sir.

    do more tutes in Maya . .. (Video tutorials please (If you can))

  2. JNothing says:

    No comments eh… ? Maybe because one could not find a use for this tunnel? Maybe some static shots? Is the final output a psd!?
    Nice work, but what could it be used for? background plate maybe?

  3. No use you say? Well if nothing else, beginners can use this tutorial at least to learn the essentials of Maya-Photoshop pipeline.
    Anyway, anything that looks good and is well done has some kind of use. posters, wallpapers, artworks – are these things of no use too?

    And btw – thanks for this tut. Looking forward to the next part…
    - Martin

  4. Abdo says:

    This 1 is long ; )…thanks 2 the editor effort
    You learn what’s written under the title!
    Thx.

  5. arlington cruz says:

    No Use? are you kidding me? I think this technique is awesome to use on a sci fi Shot . Love the lighting and textures on it. I could use this concept for a lot of different things if you ask me. Even a futuristic background for a racing game vehicles like those in Wipeout, etc.

    Thanks a lot for the Tut and awesome end result….

  6. Joseph says:

    thats very nice tutorial! keep going !

  7. arnel says:

    very interesting maya tutorial

  8. Abdo says:

    Thanks a lot:
    arlington cruz
    Joseph
    arnel

  9. alexander says:

    Hey abdo, great tutorial but i could use a little help, firstly the texture applied on the tunnel itself doesnt look right and i did exactly the same things as in the tutorial but instead of rectangular forms over it i see just lines on the walls, looks like it stretches them wrong or something, could have something to do with maya 2010… thanks:)

    • Abdo says:

      Hello alexander…
      sorry i didn’t see ur question…no it got nothing 2 do with the new maya…it about UVs planning…and i don’t know if there’s a missed image or step really!..see anyway…assign a cylindrical mapping for the tunnel, then rotate polyCylProj1 for +90 on X axis, projection sweep “9″ and “2.5″ for height…
      take care :)

      • Nathalie says:

        i was having the same problem, I followed your instructions. now it looks too glassy and i can;t see the squares. :( GREAT tutorial btw. i also encountered a lil problem with the car trace transparency. my thin poly planes look as if it had a greenish gradient, degrading from pale pink. i followed everything u said but it didn’t work.

  10. jeffrey says:

    great tut. did it in 3dmax, but wanna dive into Maya to

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