Maya SEM texture

So, I've been busy working away at lots of really, really cool things... that I can't talk about.  I'll do another post on Amira soon.

In the mean time, one of the things that I was playing around with on my own time.  Nothing ground breaking, but I like the look of it.  A WIP SEM type texture for Maya.  It's not quite as hard as I would have feared, thank goodness, although not as easy as I remember Max being.

Shading network

This is the shading network that I worked out, with some google-fu and intuition.  I have two SampleInfo nodes connected to the V-coordinates and U-coordinates of a RampTexture that has a black to white ramp.  This is then fed into the transparency setting of a lambert shader.  I have another SampleInfo, connected similarly to another RampTexture.  This one has the color that I want reflected in my model (just a test here) as part of the ramp - as you might expect, this is fed into the color connection of the lambert.

To round it all off, and give a hint of style, I have a brownian bump map on the texture.

I also deleted all the lights in the scene, and amped the Ambient setting to the max, as SEM and Xrays don't have light sources...

This is what it looks like in the scene window... :(

But this is what it looks like once rendered!  Fun.

Started playing with the settings a bit more - adding in some iridescence to give a flatter look, etc.  Having fun!

So, nothing super spectacular, but at least I have the beginnings of how to simulate a neat looking render in Maya.  I'm going to save this Shader, and try out a few more permutations... and maybe see how it looks in Unity as well!