I spent a year learning modeling and finally getting happy with my edge flow and I first started with blender. so...
I know how to use maps from crazy bump but that being ssaid, I was told in a tutorial defualt settings do it for you and if you decide to use a displacement map add division if your going to use that?
1)
I know if you create substance tetxures you can bake them out for mental ray, what I am confussed on is in tutorials people use a shader say a Blinn shader , they apply a diffuse, spec and normal map to there image file, but in the Maya manual, it shows how there is preset filters for materials such as wood, fabric etc and to use those smart filters nodes for 2d textures which knowbody covers on youtube only in what I I just metioned.
after the 2d image texture nodes are applied, I know there is a surface shader node for clearity, sharpen or blur on your tetxure, gamam and so on.. so after I do all this for my tetxures, I learn linera workflow for the camera settings such as focal lenth, lens nodes and so on and same with the lighting.? to see if I am happy with the results?
okay so question 2 and this will be a lot shorter.
2)
so after what is done on what I said up above, I do render passes? beauty pass, ambient maps, lights etc and then do a batch render to after effects to do color grade and any other effcts I chose to use such as light rays, dust particles, volume light and so on?
I would really apprciate to have this explain or if i am right on top of what I just said and just need to learn the settings for these nodes? I am really sorry for this long email.
below is the efefct I want . google image of tangled. I am sure they did some type of digital painting then render with some type of painting effect or warm and cool color lighting. the other 2 images show how substance tetxure can look like but know manual for the settings for the result and last image is the surface or smart filter for the material applyied.