Analysis

I am pleased that I have made great progress and learnt a considerable amount concerning the principles of using lighting and texturing in Maya. I initially thought that texturing and lighting was complicated, however with the help of fellow students and various online tutorials I have realised that the texturing and lighting process are very simple. I believe that I am now competent in both lighting and texturing as I now know various methods of using different lighting setups and I also know how to apply textures and bump maps to surfaces.

However I have so far been unsuccessful in being able to replicate an effective glass finish for the whiskey glass. All my attempts and renders I believe are unsatisfactory. I have looked at various online tutorials and they are either unhelpful or when followed the desired result is never acquired. So far rendering glass has been complicated and I do not believe that I fully understand how glass is to be achieved in Maya.

I shall keep persevering with methods of rendering glass, I do know that in order to create glass I need to experiment with mia_materials set to thin/ thick glass presets and using dielectric materials for liquids and enabling caustics and photon emission to achieve reflected light patterns.