Reading Assignment - Chapters 2 and 6, Sections 3.7-3.9 and 4.5-4.8 of the Advanced Renderman book.

OK, gentlefolk - before we get heavily into the shading language, here is a Maya/Photoshop rendering exercise. Later in the semester, you will be rendering some natural organic object (fruits, vegetables, nuts, tubers, breads, whatever...) procedurally.  But before you do, try the same thing with Maya and  image maps created in Photoshop.

Pick a natural organic object (e.g. a fruit or vegetable) with interesting and somewhat complicated surface properties (preferably one that doesn't spoil quickly - you may have to keep it around for a while.) In fact, older items have more interesting textures! Work with the actual object, not from memory or from photos. Think about using maps for more than just color and bump/displacement. Transparency, specular color, and reflectivity are some of the properties you may want to think about making maps for as well.

Have a rendering of your object ready for class on the due date.  Later in the semester we will be comparing your Maya based rendering with a later Renderman based rendering of the same or similar object.

Additional Notes on HW 1:

Make certain that you turn in both your rendered image(s) and your texture images, as well as the Maya files.
Don't forget the README file!