Arnold's aiUtility Node to Create Procedural Dust in Maya 2018

[@raol635]

I always learn something new from u. Thank you so much for your generous tutorials.

[@bilalsaleem7265]

Keep educating please. Looking forward to more of your Look development videos using Arnold. Just a suggestion for next video : How about creating wet surfaces? Such as water pools on roads or any surface?

[@rafihirtz4736]

Thank you very much for all of your videos, you've been very helpful to me and you have a very big part in success in my projects, I'm waiting for more of your videos, and a really good teacher, I wish you were my teacher

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you Rafi! that's very kind and I truly appreciate it. :)

[@evil_in_your_closet]

Totally with you here! I used mental ray for ages (and always loved it), and even after seeing the first demos of Arnold in the late 90s / early 2000s, i was very hesitant about using Arnold (or vRay... or anything else for that matter!), but i have come to really love Arnold these days :)

[@avtpro]

Wow. Great effect and your over-all workflow is enlightening. Thanks.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you AVTPro! The most I explore Arnold and it's nodes, the more I'm amazed! Hopefully this helped. :)

[@mitholyrics]

Hey Monica, Amazing Tutorial. Just one question. Is there any other way to distribute the dust shader such as weight painting. Aiutility node kind of limit us.

[@jannesopanen8032]

Thanks Mon! This was very helpful tutorial for all kind of shaders mixed generally.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks Janne! I'm glad you liked them. :) Mixing shaders can be fun!

[@jannesopanen8032]

@@AcademicPhoenixPlus Fun yeah, and because i'm a man, i need to say cool also ;)

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Cool too :)

[@enfokado]

Thanks a lot!!! Greetings from Perú!!

[@samuelsibal1188]

i like your tutorials, but i love your voice, its more clear understanding...

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks Samuel! I'm glad you like my tutorials and I truly hope the are helpful. :) By the way, if you want to get pre-released content, updates on workshops, free models, and more, please sign up for my newsletter. www.academicphoenixplus.com/

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Hi Private, I appreciate your response... as a humanist, like you. :) No need for donations, your words are generous enough!

[@defonten]

Thanks a lot for the great tut!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you so much!

[@JHAMS38]

Yep it is very helpful, i use to mix alpha texture with the aicurvature and noise but now that i learned this tutorial i´ll have more ideas to create alphas texture with ai utility, also its very useful substance but if i want to shade something quickly without uvs, for me arnold workflow is the best option

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

I completely agree, Julio! And thank you for your comment. :)

[@sandeepgrover7460]

Thank you for this nice tutorial. I was wondering because i was using the same model and its without uvs. you used dust map from sourceimages for specular color. Does the map work if it does not have uvs? i may be wrong as i am new to texture and lookdev. Thanks

[@AyushBakshi]

What mic you were using? Maono?

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

Thank you again for the cool tutorial! Like you I use to use Mental Ray and now Arnold is very cool. Quite simple, well simpler than Mental Ray and VRay. I am just deciding which renderer to use for work.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

VRay is awesome, but my heart is getting carried away by Arnold. ;)

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

Haha I know what you mean. Arnold is just easier to build your shading nodes. I also follow Arvid Schneider and he also has very cool Arnold tutorials.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

I'm a big Arvid fan, but his stuff is intense! Definitely not for a beginner. :) Arvid is super talented though!

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

I agree! He is soo skilled but sometimes his videos are intense and drag out to long. I always look on your channel to see similar tutorials as your training is simpler and to the point which I love. Thanks!

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

I agree!. I also have a 1080ti... I tried playing with iRay but I couldn't get it to work properly so I left it. What I like about VRay at the moment is that it has a lot options to tweak your renders which is nice but constantly tweaking gets sooo tiring. VRay & Mental Ray are similar in that respect but I like Arnold's simpler interface just to get a result quicker but in contrast VRay renders faster because of those tweaking options. Have a look at Arvid Schneider's channel as he talks about removing "Firefly" in Arnold and YES! Cant wait until Arnold supports GPU's.

[@speedfreakpsycho]

I was wondering can you make this too for Glass material? For example ai standard glass preset? Thanks

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Absolutely! Anything can be mixed together. :)

[@speedfreakpsycho]

@@AcademicPhoenixPlus any chance that you can make this tutorial?

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

@speedfreakpsycho, sure! What do you have in mind? Dust on glass? Let me know and I’ll add it to my list. :)

[@vedantgawas9746]

Hey @ Academic Phoenix nice video but I have a doubt that instead of using the png for dust breaking can we use AiNoise.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

I think that's a great idea! I'm a big fan of aiNoise 😀

[@3dmaniabyindian682]

Thanks for make tutorial

[@lukakoprivica]

Nice tut! I don't like the dust in the mouth, though, not realistic place to see it that much... Question is how can we make "what camera sees from top"? What node would you use and how? THX!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Hi Luka, I woudl approach your method by baking out a light, and only having a light shining down on the object. That way it will only get texture from the top of the models and nothing below. I'm not sure if there's a node that just does the top, but baking will work. I hope that helps!

[@lukakoprivica]

@@AcademicPhoenixPlus oh, great! Thank you.

[@keithyakouboff8755]

My only issue with Arnold is its render times. Redshift screams. But, both are beautiful renderers, and as Ms. Phoenix says, it's much easier than the older mental ray system was. Although... I hear they're trying to make a comeback, too. Ahhh... capitalistic competition. Got to love it.

[@sankarmfa]

Thankyou for the tutorial :)

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You are very welcome, Sankara. Arnold's nodes are pretty neat! :)

[@alzajel1]

amazing tutorials, thanks a lot :)

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you, m baharoon! I truly appreciate it. :) By the way, if you want to get pre-released content, updates on workshops, free models, and more, please sign up for my newsletter. www.academicphoenixplus.com/

[@alzajel1]

great, thank you again,I already signed up :)

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Awesome! Thank you for your support!

[@CryptoFeeders]

when u drag aiRange Outcolor R to Mix, its not actually connected properly/

[@JuyongJeon]

when I use Utility node to mask, if I change camera angle or light angle, the Utility node direction also change :(:( is there any way to fix the Utility direction? ( sorry my English is so bad ) In addition, Thank you for all Tutorial, that really helped me

[@ao1089]

Did you set the Utility node's shader mode to "flat"? I think that might be the problem. I found this page on Arnold's site: docs.arnoldrenderer.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=86806371 It's a bit more straight-forward and doesn't use a redundant multiply node. Follow the steps under "Object Position (n) Dust Mask". It worked great for me. Good luck!

[@diamantediamante7086]

I think that is much easier export to subtance and paint it there and after export to maya what do yiu think lady ?

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You absolutely can, Diamante! The nice thing about using procedural nodes in Arnold/Maya is that you are not limited to Substance and uv mapping. You can create this node, and plug into any more. You can even animate the texture and so much more. Super cool! But yes, I'm a big fan of substance. :)

[@Sigmo92]

also easier to tweak materials later down the line if needed when it is procedural:)

[@omma911]

Two years later and there's still no auto-connecting nodes like in node wrangler. Maya is such a slow behemoth.