Old Planning Notes

I can't believe I forgot to post these. No wonder it seems like I didn't do any work for a really long time. Here are the finalized design plans for the plug-in, detailing the pipeline from start to finish.

Shader I

I missed putting up about seven pages' worth of planning, so I've been behind on updating this. That doesn't mean I haven't been working, though! I've started coding. This is for the "660" part of my project. It takes the algorithms from this paper and translates them into a Maya shader:

KRISHNASWAMY, A., AND BARANOSKI, G. 2004. A biophysically-based spectral model of light interaction with human skin. Computer Graphics Forum 23, 3 (Sept.), 331–340.

This is the shading network for the tissue texture. Conceptually, the paper outlines how light travels through each layer of tissue - being absorbed and scattered at each one. Therefore, I am imitating this structure with Maya shader nodes. Because the shader needs to be generalized to both plants and humans, the number of pigments, color, and physical properties are all user defined.

I've decided to make pigments and layers utility nodes, so artists who want greater customization can link them via the Hypershade (as I have been doing) as well as use the plug-in provided GUI (to be developed later).