Expand your skills with complete Maya mastery

Mastering Autodesk Maya is the ultimate guide to the
popular 3D animation software. Author Todd Palamar draws on his
extensive professional animation experience to help readers take
their Maya skills to the next level. Written for those who already
know the basics of this enormous program, the book covers advanced
topics and professional techniques for modeling, animation,
texturing, and visual effects.

Fully updated to reflect Maya's latest features, the book takes
a hands-on approach to instruction, providing readers with a
diverse set of tutorials designed by real-world professionals to
showcase 3D animation and visual techniques used in industry
settings. Complete and comprehensive, the book makes an excellent
desk reference for the working animator, and is an ideal resource
for those seeking Maya certification. The unique combination of
challenging material and practical instruction make this
one-of-a-kind guide the ultimate Maya handbook. Topics include:

* Animation using inverse kinematics, keyframes, and
deformers

* Hard surface and organic modeling

* Proper rigging techniques, and working with Maya Muscle

* Xgen, Paint Effects, and rendering with mental ray

* Texture mapping, compositing, nParticles, and more

* Virtual filmmaking and scene management

The most complex skills are useless if they can't be applied, so
the book emphasizes the practical, day-to-day uses of each skill,
and discusses which solutions best fit which scenario. For the
computer animation professional seeking a more in-depth mastery of
this popular animation program, Mastering Autodesk Maya is
an excellent investment in the future of your career.

Todd Palamar began his career creating traditional
special effects for low-budget horror movies and quickly gravitated
to computer animation. After working on numerous straight-to-video
movies, he entered the video game industry. Todd has extensive
freelance experience, including dozens of military and game-style
simulations, corporate commercials, and theme park rides. In
addition, he has written several Maya books, including Maya
Studio Projects: Photorealistic Characters and several editions
of Mastering Autodesk Maya.

Mastering Autodesk Maya is the ultimate guide to the popular 3D animation software. Author Todd Palamar draws on his extensive professional animation experience to help readers take their Maya skills to the next level. Written for those who already know the basics of this enormous program, the book covers advanced topics and professional techniques for modeling, animation, texturing, and visual effects.

Fully updated to reflect Maya's latest features, the book takes a hands-on approach to instruction, providing readers with a diverse set of tutorials designed by real-world professionals to showcase 3D animation and visual techniques used in industry settings. Complete and comprehensive, the book makes an excellent desk reference for the working animator, and is an ideal resource for those seeking Maya certification. The unique combination of challenging material and practical instruction make this one-of-a-kind guide the ultimate Maya handbook. Topics include:

• Animation using inverse kinematics, keyframes, and deformers
• Hard surface and organic modeling
• Proper rigging techniques, and working with Maya Muscle
• Xgen, Paint Effects, and rendering with mental ray
• Texture mapping, compositing, nParticles, and more
• Virtual filmmaking and scene management

The most complex skills are useless if they can't be applied, so the book emphasizes the practical, day-to-day uses of each skill, and discusses which solutions best fit which scenario. For the computer animation professional seeking a more in-depth mastery of this popular animation program, Mastering Autodesk Maya is an excellent investment in the future of your career.

Chapter 1 • Working in Autodesk Maya 1

Creating and Editing Nodes 1

Using the Hypergraph 3

Connecting Nodes with the Node Editor 7

Creating Node Hierarchies in the Outliner 11

Displaying Options in the Outliner 15

The Channel Box 18

The Attribute Editor 22

Working with Shader Nodes in the Hypershade 25

Creating Maya Projects 34

Creating a New Project 34

Editing and Changing Projects 36

The Bottom Line 37

Chapter 2 • Introduction to Animation 39

Using Joints and Constraints 39

Joint Basics 39

Point Constraints 41

Aim Constraints 41

Inverse Kinematics 44

IK Handle Tool 45

Creating a Master Control 48

Keyframe Animation 51

Creating Keyframes 51

Auto Keyframe 53

Moving and Scaling Keyframes on the Timeline 54

Copy, Paste, and Cut Keyframes 56

The Graph Editor 58

Animation Curves 59

Editing Animation Curves 64

Weighted Tangents 68

Additional Editing Tools 69

Breakdowns and In-Betweens 72

Pre- and Post-Infinity 75

Playblast and FCheck 78

Driven Keys 80

Creating a Driven Key 80

Looping Driven Keys 82

Copying and Pasting Driven Keys 83

Motion-Path Animation 86

Motion Trails 88

Animating Constraints 90

Animation Layers 94

Creating an Animation Layer 94

Layer Mode 96

Other Options in the Layer Editor 98

Layer Hierarchy 99

Merging Layers 102

Grease Pencil 103

The Bottom Line 105

Chapter 3 • Hard-Surface Modeling 107

Understanding Polygon Geometry 107

Polygon Vertices 108

Polygon Edges 108

Polygon Faces 109

Working with Smooth Polygons 111

Understanding NURBS 112

Understanding Curves 113

Understanding NURBS Surfaces 115

Surface Seams 118

NURBS Display Controls 118

Using Subdivision Surfaces 119

Employing Image Planes 119

Modeling NURBS Surfaces 123

Lofting Surfaces 131

Attaching Surfaces 134

Converting NURBS Surfaces to Polygons 137

Modeling with Polygons 139

Using Booleans 139

Cleaning Topology 144

Creating Your Own Polygons 147

Multi-Cut Tool 151

Combining and Merging Geometry 153

Bridge Polygon 155

Mirror Cut 159

The Bottom Line 161

Chapter 4 • Organic Modeling 163

Implement Box Modeling 163

Shaping Using Smooth Mesh Polygon Geometry 164

Connect Components 177

Slide Edge Tool 179

Offset Edge Loops 181

Employ Build-out Modeling 182

Extrude Along a Curve 184

Sculpting Polygons 188

Soft Select Tool 188

Sculpting Polygons Using Artisan 190

Use Retopology Tools 194

Importing and Exporting 194

Alembic Cache Files 195

Slide on Surface 195

Quad Draw 198

Reduce 205

The Bottom Line 206

Chapter 5 • Rigging and Muscle Systems 207

Understanding Rigging 207

Creating and Organizing Joint Hierarchies 209

Orienting Joints 217

Naming Joints 220

Mirroring Joints 222

Rigging the Giraffe 223

IK Legs 224

FK Blending 226

Rotate Plane Solver 229

Creating Custom Attributes 232

Spline IK 236

Human Inverse Kinematics 242

Skeleton Generator 243

Character Controls 244

Interoperability 247