Hello, how can i do the shading to get the result below? Any Hints on how todo that in Maya? Its driving me NUTS, i have 100s of Fluid Shapes, but i just cant get the Shading / Lighting setup right! THANK YOU SO MUCH
I'm not sure DP is the best forum for this, anyway forget about "lighting water" - it has zero diffuse component unless it's muddy. What you really care for are specular highlights and the best way to get them is not with lights but with reflections: i.e. with an "HDR" environment map. Good starting point for water materials is 0% diffuse, 70% transparent and 30% reflective - solid white color as the real color will come from the environment around. Fresnel also helps, note how in the pic you posted the water is transparent when looked straight on (camera normal pointing in the same direction as the surface) and picks up the reflections at the edges when the normals are pointing away. Are you using maya software renderer, mental ray, vray...?