Enhancing Autodesk Maya´s rendering capabilities: : Development and integration of a real-time render plug-in incorporating the extended feature of Toon-Shading

Abstract: Background- Autodesk Maya is by its long existence one of the most established 3D-modeling software that enables users to create meshes and the software can handle a majority of processes associated with graphic models, animation, and rendering. Although there are arguably different third-party plug-ins that can be used to enhance the efficiency of Maya. Maya’s own built-in rendering functions, especially its real-time rendering engine feel less efficient than other available real-time rendering options, which additionally commonly provide different rendering techniques that can be used to give a desired style to the modeled scene.  Objectives- Maya in its built-in rendering engines themselves does not offer much in terms of non-realistic rendering techniques; therefore, rendering in, for example, Toon-shading requires more work and effort. The objective is to implement a prototype plug-in to that can do real-time rendering of a realistic as well as non-photorealistic rendering technique inside of Autodesk Maya 2023. Its future aim is to address the non-effective and time-consuming task of viewing the results of light adjustments and setting the scene up for stylized renders in Maya.  Methods- Through the method of implementation, a basic plug-in to Autodesk Maya was constructed in Visual Studio using C++ and DirectX 11 library. It employs Qt-window to render the Maya scene in real-time and, additionally, has the function of Toon-shading. The prototype plug-in is then put through a simple test using manual assessment. The prototype’s visual rendered output, rendering times, processing usage, and memory usage are presented and compared to the results from Maya 2023’s built-in rendering options when rendering a constructed test-scene to find out where the plug-in requires further adjustments to its implementation. Results- The results show that a real-time plug-in with the additional function of Toon-shading was implementedusing the defined method of implementation. From the later test, the prototype’s rendered results arepresented and compared to the results of Autodesk Maya 2023’s built-in rendering options when rendering the constructed test-scene. Conclusion- The prototype by collecting information from the Maya scene and running the same data through the DirectX pipeline allows for different rendering styles to be developed and displayed through the user-friendly graphical user interface developed with the Qt-library. With the press of a button different implemented rendering styles like the one of Toon-shading can be applied to the prototype’s window display of the Maya scene. Its real-time rendering allows the user to see the implemented graphical attributes done to the scene without time delay. Which makes the job of finding the right angle for the intended render more efficient. The intended rendered scene can then easily be saved by the press of another button. The time and workflow no longer require the 3D-model to be imported to another rendering software or to apply different materials to all parts of the different Maya 3D-models when trying to achieve a non-photorealistic rendering style. The implemented prototype is very basic, andmore implementation is required before the prototype can be used as an efficient rendering alternative for stylized rendering in Maya.