3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya

<P>Acknowledgments</P>
<P>Author</P>
<P>The Book's Web Site</P><B>
<P>Getting Oriented</P></B>
<P>Focus and Approach of This Book</P><I>
<P>A Necessarily Nonlinear Approach to Learning 3D Animation</P>
<P>Perhaps the Most Important Principle</P></I>
<P>3DbyBuzz.com</P>
<P>What Maya (R) Does and Does Not Do</P>
<P>The Special Needs of Gaming</P>
<P>Workflow Within and Around Maya</P><I>
<P>Other Applications Commonly Used by Animators</P>
<P>The Big Picture</P>
<P>Inside Maya</P>
<P>Other Application Needs</P></I>
<P>Working with Prefab Content</P>
<P>The Cabana of Cool Concepts</P>
<P>The Small Subset Approach to Learning 3D Animation</P><I>
<P>Every Animation App Is Unique</P></I>
<P>How to Use This Book</P>
<P>Prerequisites</P>
<P>Contents of This Book</P>
<P>A Motivational Example</P>
<P>Art and Engineering</P>
<P>A Final Note</P><B>
<P>The Maya Interface and Modeling Concepts in Maya</P></B>
<P>The 3D World of Modeling and Animation</P>
<P>Seeing the 3D World through the Eyes of Maya</P><I>
<P>A Warning: The Maya Interface Can Be Intimidating, Don't Be Dispirited</P>
<P>The Main Window</P>
<P>A Note on Changing Geometry Modes</P>
<P>The Hypershade</P>
<P>An Object and Its Attributes</P>
<P>The Render View for Creating Single Render Tests</P>
<P>Render Settings and the Batch Renderer for Creating Multiframe</P>
<P>Renderings for Video</P>
<P>How to Find Something in the Maya Interface</P>
<P>Maya's Data Folders</P></I>
<P>Two Kinds of Modeling in Maya</P><I>
<P>Terminology</P>
<P>Meshes</P>
<P>Surface-And Not Solid-Modeling</P>
<P>Vector versus Raster Graphics</P>
<P>Polygon and NURBS Modeling</P>
<P>Choosing between Polygon and NURBS Modeling</P>
<P>NURBS Modeling Modes</P></I>
<P>Maya Is Always Rendering</P>
<P>Subdivision Is Alive and Well</P>
<P>CUDA</P>
<P>Curved Lines, Bezier, and NURBS</P>
<P>Core Tools: Translate, Scale, and Rotate in Maya</P><I>
<P>Some Trig</P>
<P>Translation, Scaling, and Rotation in 3-Space</P>
<P>In Sum</P></I>
<P>Reference</P><B>
<P>Modeling, Creating Materials, and Rendering</P></B>
<P>Modeling as a Subjective Process</P><I>
<P>Deliberate Modeling</P>
<P>Models and Objects</P>
<P>Top-Down Modeling</P>
<P>Adding Detail with Precision</P>
<P>Choosing the Model Hierarchy</P>
<P>Building Models in Separate Scenes and Using Display Layers</P>
<P>Create Versions of Models That You Can Retreat To</P>
<P>In Sum</P>
<P>More on Layers in Maya</P></I>
<P>Using Curved Lines and mental ray to Make a NURBS Glass Dish</P><I>
<P>From Curved Lines to Smooth Surfaces </P>
<P>Creating a Series of NURBS Curves </P>
<P>Revolution! </P>
<P>Putting a Glass Material on the Dish</P>
<P>Two Software Renderers</P>
<P>Two Important Perspectives </P>
<P>Rendering by Tracing Rays </P>
<P>Glass in mental ray </P>
<P>The Background </P>
<P>More mental ray Computations: Quality</P>
<P>More mental ray Computations: Indirect Lighting</P>
<P>Shadows as Roots of Models</P>
<P>mental ray's Advantage</P>
<P>The Renderer's Main Job</P></I>
<P>Using Polygon Extrusion to (Start to) Make a Hand</P><I>
<P>Polygon Modeling: Basic Shapes</P>
<P>Recursive Refinement</P>
<P>The Hand</P></I>
<P>Using NURBS Lofting and Extrusion to Make a Saguaro Cactus</P><I>
<P>Using Reference Images </P>
<P>NURBS Extrude </P>
<P>Sculpting </P>
<P>Lofting </P>
<P>Projection </P>
<P>Loft Again </P>
<P>In Sum </P></I><B>
<P>Hierarchies of Objects, a Polygon Example, Detailed Polygon Modeling, and a NURBS Example</P></B>
<P>Basic Concepts</P><I>
<P>Modeling Hierarchies</P>
<P>Objects</P>
<P>Formal Notions</P>
<P>Hierarchies</P>
<P>Another Example</P>
<P>Extending the Notion of a Hierarchy</P>
<P>The Importance of the Outliner</P></I>
<P>Using Bevel, Extrude, Detach, and Combine to Make a Mailbox</P><I>
<P>A Working Set of Polygon Modeling Tools</P>
<P>Creating a New Edge</P>
<P>Beveling</P>
<P>Extrusion</P>
<P>Detach</P>
<P>The Clip</P></I>
<P>Beveled Letters</P>
<P>Making a Polygon Moai</P><I>
<P>Rapa Nui</P>
<P>A Modeling Exercise: Making a Moai on Your Own</P>
<P>Making a Moai with Polygon Modeling</P>
<P>Smoothing and Rendering </P></I>
<P>Smoothing a Polygon Model: Many Choices</P><I>
<P>Smooth Tool</P>
<P>Using the Smooth Tool Locally </P>
<P>Adding Faces and Manipulating New Faces, and Beveling Edges </P>
<P>Manipulating Normals to Smooth Edges </P>
<P>Smoothing with mental ray, without Changing the Geometry</P></I>
<P>Surgically Mending an Imperfect Model</P><I>
<P>Merging Edges in a Single Piece of Geometry</P>
<P>Removing a Face with Merge to Center </P>
<P>Filling in a Hole in a Polygon Model with a Bridge Tool</P></I>
<P>Making Small and Graceful Changes to a Model </P><I>
<P>Sliding an Edge</P>
<P>Soft Move</P>
<P>Aligning Objects </P></I>
<P>Using the Sweep of a Cylinder and Resizing to Make a Breadbox</P><I>
<P>A NURBS Surface</P>
<P>The Sweep of a NURBS Surface</P>
<P>Nested Objects</P>
<P>Finishing the Geometry of the Breadbox</P></I><B>
<P>Materials, Bump Maps, Lights, Projection versus Normal Textures, Connecting NURBS Surfaces, and Layered Textures</P></B><I>
<P>The Bottom Line</P></I>
<P>Working with Maya Materials to Make a Tabletop</P><I>
<P>Ways to Surface a Model</P>
<P>Textures and Materials for the Maya Software Renderer</P>
<P>Bump Maps</P>
<P>Finishing the Table Scene</P>
<P>Materials or Textures? </P></I>
<P>Lights</P><I>
<P>Ambient Light and Shadows</P>
<P>Directional Light and Shadows</P>
<P>Point Light and Shadows</P>
<P>Spotlights and Shadows</P>
<P>Area Light </P>
<P>mental ray Light Shaders </P>
<P>mental ray 2D and 3D Lights </P>
<P>Depth Map versus Raytraced Shadows</P>
<P>The Varnished Table</P></I>
<P>Being Creative with Textures for Bump Maps: Making a Road and a Sidewalk</P><I>
<P>More Bump Maps</P>
<P>Completing the Scene: Creating a Light Pole and Painting 3D Geometry to Make Grass</P></I>
<P>Creating a Layered Texture in Pixelmator</P><I>
<P>Photographs for Textures</P>
<P>Working outside of Maya </P>
<P>The Uses of Bit-Mapped Images </P>
<P>Blending Layers</P>
<P>Rusty, Painted Metal </P></I>
<P>Layering Capability Native to Maya</P><I>
<P>Brief Note: Various Color Systems</P></I>
<P>Cylindrical Projection of an Image Texture on the Cactus</P><I>
<P>Projection or Normal Texture?</P>
<P>Projecting Textures</P>
<P>Conversion to Polygons</P>
<P>Types of Projections</P>
<P>Tiling</P>
<P>Adjusting the Projection of a Texture</P></I>
<P>Stitching NURBS Surfaces to Make Carpeted Stairs</P><I>
<P>Isoparms</P>
<P>Connecting Stairs</P>
<P>Putting a Material on the Stairs</P>
<P>Using the Append to Polygon Tool for Connecting Two Stairs</P></I>
<P>Using a File Texture as a Material's Color and Making a Material Stick</P><I>
<P>A Texture as a Color of a Material </P>
<P>Assigning an Image to a Material's Color Attribute</P>
<P>Adjusting and Fixing the Material Placement</P>
<P>Adjusting the Material's Ambient Color Attribute </P></I>
<P>Using Polygon Face Extrusion and a File Texture as a Lambert Color to Make an Ice Rink</P><I>
<P>Extruding the Wall</P>
<P>Using a File Texture for the Fence</P>
<P>Using Two Layers for Ice</P>
<P>Textures versus Geometry: Bump Maps versus Displacement Maps</P></I>
<P>Bump Maps versus Displacement Maps in Maya</P><I>
<P>Bump Maps</P>
<P>Displacement Maps</P>
<P>The Resulting Render: Comparing Bump Maps to Displacement Maps</P></I><B>
<P>Particle Dynamics </P></B>
<P>Use Emitters Sparingly </P>
<P>Saving Render Time </P>
<P>Rocket Pollution and Hardware Particles</P><I>
<P>The Attributes of the Emitter and the Particles </P></I>
<P>Using Software Particles in nDynamics to Create Trix</P><I>
<P>nDynamics in Maya </P>
<P>Particle Dynamics Engines and Solvers </P>
<P>Emitting Trix into the Glass Bowl </P>
<P>Colliders</P>
<P>Scaling the Trix </P>
<P>Ramp Textures </P>
<P>The Trix's Ramp </P>
<P>Gravity</P>
<P>Action! </P>
<P>An Aside </P></I>
<P>Creating a Cloth Flag with nDynamics</P><I>
<P>nDynamics Meets Geometry</P>
<P>A Flag </P>
<P>Putting a Texture on the Flag</P>
<P>Making the Flag Flap</P></I>
<P>Creating Rain with nDynamics</P><I>
<P>Downward Gravity versus the Upward Bounce of a Collider</P>
<P>Two Planes: Rain Clouds and the Ground</P>
<P>Rain Particles</P>
<P>The Ground</P>
<P>Making It Rain</P>
<P>Instancing</P></I>
<P>Specialized Dynamics Applications</P><B>
<P>A First Look at Adding Animation</P></B>
<P>Moving an Object along a Motion Path</P><I>
<P>Creating a Path</P>
<P>Putting an Object on a Path</P>
<P>From the Camera's Perspective: A River Ride</P></I>
<P>Keyframing an Object</P><I>
<P>The Timeline </P>
<P>Creating Keyframes </P></I>
<P>Using the Graph Editor to Reuse Animation </P><I>
<P>The Graph Editor </P>
<P>Motion Cycles</P>
<P>Driven Keys </P></I>
<P>Using Skeletons to Simulate Natural Movement </P><I>
<P>Inverse Kinematics versus Forward Kinematics </P>
<P>Inverse Kinematics in a Leg</P>
<P>The Power of Inverse Kinematics Skeletons </P></I><B>
<P>The Fuzzy Border between Modeling and Animating</P></B>
<P>Using NURBS, Shatter, and Fur to Make an Egg and Crack It</P><I>
<P>Smooth Modeling for an Egg </P>
<P>Cracking the Egg with the Shatter Tool </P>
<P>A Chick and Fur </P>
<P>Maya Fur and nHair: An nDynamics Effect </P></I>
<P>Using Blend Shape to Animate the Leg of the Chick Being Born</P><I>
<P>Animating a Chick Leg with a Blend Shape</P></I>
<P>Using a Bend Deformer to Animate Rolling Up a Pool Cover</P><I>
<P>The Bend Deformer </P>
<P>Animating a Swimming Pool Cover </P></I>
<P>Bouncing a Squishy Ball with a Squash Deformer </P><I>
<P>Keyframing the Ball</P>
<P>Running and Rendering the Scene </P></I>
<P>Using the Lattice Deformer to Damage Our Mailbox</P><I>
<P>Morphing the Mailbox </P>
<P>The Rendered Result </P>
<P>A Note on Using the Lattice Deformer </P></I>
<P>Using Deformers for Modeling: An Important Detail</P><B>
<P>Light Fog, Fluids, and Another Look at Materials</P></B>
<P>Fixing a Tiled Texture with Overlays </P><I>
<P>Experimenting with Textures </P>
<P>Adding Noise to the Tiling Lines </P>
<P>Two Final Notes on Tiling </P></I>
<P>Making a Seamless Texture with Maya Paint</P><I>
<P>Painting a Seamless Tiled Texture </P>
<P>Creating and Tiling a File Texture </P></I>
<P>Making Glass Bottles with NURBS and mental ray</P><I>
<P>The Three Bottles </P>
<P>mental ray Settings </P>
<P>A Bottle inside a Bottle </P>
<P>The Render </P></I>
<P>Glass and Particles for a Single-Frame Image </P><I>
<P>The Scene </P>
<P>Fluid Containers </P>
<P>mental ray Glass </P>
<P>The Background </P>
<P>Rendering Settings </P></I>
<P>Using Light Fog and Glow to Create a Night Scene</P><I>
<P>Fog </P>
<P>A Sidewalk and Street Scene with Fog</P>
<P>Making a Material Behave Like a Light</P>
<P>The Render </P></I><B>
<P>An Example Model: A Closet</P></B>
<P>Multiple Coordinate Systems in Maya</P>
<P>Opening and Closing Doors with the Rotate Tool, and Bounding Boxes </P><I>
<P>Adding Detail to the Doors with the Interactive Split Tool </P>
<P>The Render </P>
<P>One More Look at World Space versus Object Space </P></I>
<P>Making a Shirt out of nCloth and Rendering from a Camera's Perspective </P><I>
<P>A Shirt Made of nCloth: Starting with a Basic Shape</P>
<P>A NURBS Hanger </P>
<P>Extruding Sleeves, Making Arm and Neck Holes, and Refining the Shape of the Shirt</P>
<P>A Passive Collider Hanger and Fields</P>
<P>Letting the Cloth Drape on the Hanger and Creating a Camera</P>
<P>The Camera's Perspective and Rendering </P></I>
<P>Timing Animation to a Soundtrack and Rendering Multiple Frames</P><I>
<P>Opening up the Time Slider: Making Room for Audio</P>
<P>Sound in Maya</P>
<P>Guiding the Keyframing of a Scene with the Sound Wave</P>
<P>Rendering with the Batch Renderer</P></I>
<P>Using the Graph Editor in Maya to Fine-Tune Animation</P><I>
<P>Frame and Value </P>
<P>The Rotation Curve</P></I>
<P>A Useful Tool: fCheck</P>
<P>Light Linking to Accentuate the Closet Doors</P><I>
<P>Controlling Lights</P>
<P>Why Control Lights Artificially?</P>
<P>Three-Point Lighting</P>
<P>Fill Lights in Maya</P>
<P>Placing and Positioning Models in a Scene</P>
<P>Controlling Lights from the Hypershade</P></I><B>
<P>Specialized Animation Techniques</P></B>
<P>Skeletons, Inverse Kinematics Handles, Rigging, and</P>
<P>Skinning a Simple Humanoid</P><I>
<P>HIK: The Skeleton Maker in Maya </P>
<P>Maya's Skeleton Generator </P>
<P>Skinning </P>
<P>The Rig </P>
<P>Solvers </P>
<P>Making Your Character's Body More Organic</P>
<P>Controlling the Movement of a Skeleton: Pinning and Constraining, and the Sticky Checkbox</P>
<P>A Last Remark </P></I>
<P>Active Rigid Objects and Gravity: A Bowling Ball and Pins</P><I>
<P>The Bowling Ball and Pins: Collisions</P>
<P>Four Rigid Bodies</P>
<P>Making the Ball Move: Gravity!</P>
<P>Calculating Collisions</P></I>
<P>Using Soft Body Dynamics to Age a Moai Statue</P><I>
<P>Turning the Moai into a Soft Body</P>
<P>Before and After </P></I>
<P>Using the Channel Box for Keyframing the Transparency of a Moai </P><I>
<P>Making Our Moai Disappear </P></I>
<P>Using an Expression to Rotate a Doorknob</P><I>
<P>The Rendering</P>
<P>A Note on Using the Outliner Window</P></I>
<P>Using Maya Expressions and Variables to Animate Models</P><I>
<P>Example 1: Applying an Expression to the Visibility Attribute of an Object That Has a Material with a Glow Intensity</P>
<P>Example 2: Our Squashing Ball</P>
<P>More Maya Embedded Language (MEL)</P></I>
<P>Creating an Ocean Water Swell</P><I>
<P>Using nCloth as Water and Applying Gravity</P>
<P>The Ball Falls through the Water and Creates a Rippling Swell</P></I><B>
<P>Specialized Materials and Material Effects</P></B>
<P>Making a Toon Cow</P><I>
<P>The Vector Renderer</P>
<P>The Toon Shader </P></I>
<P>Making a Graffiti-Covered Wall with Paint Effects</P><I>
<P>The Paint Effects Canvas</P>
<P>Painting on an Image</P>
<P>Choosing a More Realistic Effect</P></I>
<P>The mental ray Sky Dome</P><I>
<P>The Rendering</P></I>
<P>Baking a Material</P>
<P>A Homemade Sky Dome</P><B>
<P>The UV Texture Editor</P></B>
<P>The (u, v) Surfacing Problem</P>
<P>A Planar Projection of a Normal File Texture and Using the Move and Scale Tools to Adjust It</P><I>
<P>Using the Scale Tool in the UV Editor</P>
<P>Rotating and Flipping</P></I>
<P>A Closer Look at the UV Editor: Creating and Manipulating UV Maps</P><I>
<P>A Doorknob's (u, v) Texture Mapping </P>
<P>The UV Smudge Tool </P></I>
<P>A Comparison of Different UV Editor Mappings</P><B>
<P>Multi-App Maya Workflow, Managing Complex Scenes, and Sculpting Applications</P></B>
<P>The Inter-App Workflow Dilemma </P><I>
<P>Plug-Ins That Work Pretty Well </P>
<P>Specialized Modeling: Bipeds </P>
<P>Exterior Environments: Vue and Terragen </P>
<P>Specialized Modeling: Sculpting with ZBrush </P>
<P>Stand-Alone Renderers: Maxwell, Octane, and Indigo </P>
<P>Translating Materials: The Rendering Plug-In's Main Job </P></I>
<P>Sculpting Applications and Sculpting with Maya </P><I>
<P>ZBrush and Mudbox </P>
<P>Reducing Meshes in Maya </P>
<P>Maya's Soft Modification Tool </P></I><B>
<P>Advanced Light and Materials Properties and Effects</P></B>
<P>Ambient Occlusion</P>
<P>Global Illumination and Final Gathering</P>
<P>Caustics</P>
<P>Light Emitting Materials: Irradiance </P>
<P>Coloring mental ray's Glass Material </P>
<P>Coloring a Material with Lights </P>
<P>Using Anisotropy with mental ray to Control the Transparency of Frosted Glass</P>
<P>Using the Penumbra and Drop-off Settings on a Maya Spotlight</P>
<P>Adjusting the Resolution Attribute of a Directional Light in Maya</P>
<P>Adding Raytrace Shadows and mental ray Sun and Sky to the Bottle</P><B>
<P>The Cabana</P></B>
<P>A Beginner's Project: Basic, Top-Down Architectural Modeling</P><I>
<P>Reuse</P>
<P>Reference Images</P>
<P>Modeling with Texturing and Animating in Mind</P></I>
<P>The Cabana</P><I>
<P>Using Prefab Content to Flesh Out a Scene</P>
<P>Building the Cabana: Workflow</P></I>
<P>A Note on Animating Humans</P>
<P>The Cool Concepts of the Cabana</P><B>
<P>Cool Concepts</P></B>
<P>Index</P>