Terminology

I think the most important part of the research I have done so far, is the terminology. When I collected my research together, I realised that I didn't have a clue what most of them were going on about. I decided to use the Maya help website to look up some terms.

The terms that were most used were global illumination, final gathering, caustics. Some tutorials talked about depth map shadows and maps such as reflection maps and specular maps but even though I found out what they were, they are less likely to be used in the tutorials. Mainly because these are far more complicated to use and create than other methods.

The tutorials also talk about raytracing and refractions so explaining these will be critical. There is also a lot about the lighting attributes such as penumbra angle. These seem obvious once you start using the settings and experimenting but it may need explaining if someone has not used lighting before.

The next stage will be to use what I have learnt and start the tutorials. Now that I have a better understanding it will be easier to accomplish.