Lake

Another key part of this project is the water.  I had already created an ocean shader with a steady flow, suitable for the African wilderness and applied it to a basic Polygon plane; but I needed to create an actual lake that would blend in with the surroundings.

Gary drew me this quick sketch to illustrate how the lake should be shaped.

For the lake, I decided to work with NURBS, as opposed to polygons, because I could quickly model a very organic and curved shape.  To do this, I went to the 'Curves' tab and selected the EP Curve tool, which allowed me to draw curves, simply by clicking.  I created the shape in the Top view.

I then went to the Surfaces tab and selected 'Planar' to create the flat NURBS surface.  I deleted the history of the surface and the original curve.

Next, I opened the Maya file which contained the polygon plane and ocean shader that I had completed a while back.

I opened Hypershade, selected the ocean shader and simply exported it to its own Maya file.

I reopened my NURBS surface and imported the ocean shader.  In Hypershade, I assigned the Ocean shader to the NURBS surface.

After a batch render, here is the outcome.