Layered Textures

Why layered textures?
Layered textures are diferent from layered shaders in that one shader is used with several texture
layers instead of several shaders layered together into one shader. Layered textures take less time to
render and also adapt to global ilumination, final gather, and other mental ray lighting techniques.
Step One: Setup
Open a new scene in Maya and create a new model or import a
previously made model. I used a simple polygon sphere. Open
up the hypershade (Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade)
and make sure it is set to show the top and botom tabs.
Create a new material (I used a lambert). From the Create
menu, select Layered Texture. Drag the layered texture onto
the lambert shader with the middle mouse buton.
Step Two: Editing the Atributes
Click on the layered texture and open its atribute editor. Click in the red box to add additional layers (I
used two layers for this exercise). The layer to the farthest left is the top layer, and the layer to the farthest
right is the botom layer. Click on the botom layer and name it. Map the color atribute with your
texture file and change your blend mode to none (this texture is on the botom, therefore has nothing to
blend with). Click the next layer (this would be my top layer) and map the color atribute like the previous
layer. I used a simple fractal noise for this layer. Experiment with blending modes to find the one you
would like to use. For this exercise, I used the blending mode multiply.
NOTE: Make sure you have the box “Layer is Visible” checked, otherwise you won’t see your layer!
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Layered Textures in Maya

Step Three: Edit the Shader and Render
In the Hypershade, double-click on the shader to open its
atribute editor (this should be the shader that is connected
to the layered texture). Change the hardware texturing
seting to “highest” and then atach the shader to
your geometry. Changing this option wil alow you to manipulate
your shader beter in your scene. Edit your render
globals and render out your scene. This would also be a
good time to SAVE. Below is a shot of the hypershade work
space and the connections between al of the elements.
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Layered Textures in Maya