Maya Character Animation

"The best character animation book available."
--Ian Cairns, Editor, MAYA Association

This second edition of the popular Maya Character Animation is an in-depth, step-by-step guide to perfecting your modeling and animation skills. Abundantly illustrated tutorials teach you how to build life-like characters from the ground up, with detailed coverage of effective subdivision surface and polygon modeling techniques. You'll master the intricacies of rigid and smooth character binding, discover the art of convincing facial expressions, and conquer post-modeling challenges ranging from character setup to non-linear animation editing to mapping and rendering. Benefit from this edition's coverage of inverse and forward kinematics, 3D character animation for character modeling and character setup, and valuable info on rigging your characters.

Put your new skills to the test by completing a realistic project in which you plan, create, and refine your own short-piece animation. Throughout, you'll find hundreds of full-color images that demonstrate what you can--and will--accomplish. You also get bonus coverage of Deep Paint 3D, the premier texture-painting program.