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Home: Autodesk Maya Online Help
Assign colors to polygon vertices by painting
Working with color per vertex data
Animate polygon vertex colors
Assign colors to polygon
vertices using Prelight
Prelighting
calculates and then stores the shading and lighting color data from
the rendered appearance of a polygon mesh directly on its vertex
colors. This is also referred to as “baking” the lighting.
Prelighting is often
used when creating content for interactive video games because it
can more efficiently simulate shading and lighting effects. This reduces
the amount of rendering calculations that must occur in real-time during
the game and subsequently improves the interactive performance of the
video game.
You can prelight a polygon
mesh in a scene using either the Maya software renderer or using
the mental ray for Maya renderer. It is also possible to export
the prelighting data that is produced as a texture map.
To
prelight a scene
- Select the meshes or components you want
to prelight.
- You can choose either the Maya software
renderer or the mental ray for Maya renderer depending on your desired
workflow for your prelighting work. Do one of the following:
- Set the prelight options and apply the
settings and close the window.
To save prelighting
to a texture map
- Select the prelit mesh.
- Select
Color > Paint Vertex Color Tool > .
- In the Paint Vertex Color Tool settings
window, open the Attribute Maps > Export section.
- Set the attributes you want to export
and click Export.
Notes
- The mesh must be illuminated by at least
one light for prelighting to have any effect.
- Prelighting can be an iterative process.
You may need to repeat the process to achieve the effect you want,
tweaking the prelight options each time.