2009
Table Of Contents
- Contents
- Overview
- Maya Basics
- Polygonal Modeling
- Introduction
- Preparing for the lesson
- Lesson 1: Modeling a polygonal mesh
- Introduction
- Setting modeling preferences
- Using 2D reference images
- Creating a polygon primitive
- Modeling in shaded mode
- Model symmetry
- Selecting components by painting
- Selecting edge loops
- Editing components in the orthographic views
- Editing components in the perspective view
- Drawing a polygon
- Extruding polygon components
- Bridging between edges
- Adding polygons to a mesh
- Splitting polygon faces
- Terminating edge loops
- Deleting construction history
- Mirror copying a mesh
- Working with a smoothed mesh
- Creasing and hardening edges on a mesh
- Beyond the lesson
- NURBS Modeling
- Subdivision Surfaces
- Animation
- Introduction
- Preparing for the lessons
- Lesson 1: Keyframes and the Graph Editor
- Lesson 2: Set Driven Key
- Lesson 3: Path animation
- Lesson 4: Nonlinear animation with Trax
- Introduction
- Open the first scene for the lesson
- Creating clips with Trax
- Changing the position of clips with Trax
- Editing the animation of clips
- Reusing clips within Trax
- Soloing and muting tracks
- Scaling clips within Trax
- Open the second scene for the lesson
- Creating clips from motion capture data
- Extending the length of motion capture data
- Redirecting the motion within a clip
- Beyond the lesson
- Lesson 5: Inverse kinematics
- Introduction
- Open the scene for the lesson
- Understanding hierarchies
- Viewing hierarchies using the Hypergraph
- Creating a skeleton hierarchy
- Parenting a model into a skeleton hierarchy
- Applying IK to a skeleton hierarchy
- Creating a control object for an IK system
- Constraining an IK system
- Limiting the range of motion of an IK system
- Simplifying the display of a hierarchy
- Applying parent constraints on an IK system
- Planning an animation for an IK system
- Animating an IK system
- Beyond the lesson
- Character Setup
- Polygon Texturing
- Rendering
- Introduction
- Preparing for the lessons
- Lesson 1: Rendering a scene
- Introduction
- Open the scene for the lesson
- Creating shading materials for objects
- Refining shading materials for objects
- Maya renderers
- Rendering a single frame using IPR
- Rendering using the Maya software renderer
- Batch rendering a sequence of animation frames
- Viewing a sequence of rendered frames
- Beyond the lesson
- Lesson 2: Shading surfaces
- Lesson 3: Lights, shadows, and cameras
- Lesson 4: Global Illumination
- Lesson 5: Caustics
- Dynamics
- Painting
- Introduction
- Preparing for the lessons
- Lesson 1: Painting in 2D using Paint Effects
- Lesson 2: Painting in 3D using Paint Effects
- Introduction
- Preparing for the lessons
- Brushes and strokes
- Rendering Paint Effects strokes
- Paint Effects on 3D objects
- Creating a surface to paint on
- Painting on objects
- Using turbulence with brush stroke tubes
- Using additional preset brushes
- Mesh brushes
- Converting mesh strokes to polygons
- Modifying a converted polygonal mesh
- Beyond the lesson
- Lesson 3: Painting textures on surfaces
- Expressions
- Scripting in Maya
- Index
The green curve represents Translate Y, while the red represents Translate
X. The color of each curve matches its attribute name. This color scheme
is consistent throughout Maya for X, Y, and Z (red, green, blue).
If you’ve never used a graph editor before, the relationship between a
curve’s shape and the animation it represents might be hard to
understand. With experience, you’ll quickly recognize how curve shape
affects animation.
In the above graph, the straight curve of Translate X indicates that the
ball moves horizontally across the ground at a constant rate over time.
The wavy curve of Translate Y indicates that the ball increases its height
steadily until frame 33, dips more quickly until frame 50, then rises and
dips again until frame 72.
When the ball first bounces off the ground at frame 50, it seems to float
and slip rather than rebound. The shape of the Translate Y curve illustrates
why. Near frame 60, the curve is soft and rounded. The Translate Y values
gradually decrease to the low point then gradually increase. The transition
from decreasing to increasing values is smooth.
The Graph Editor’s usefulness lies in the fact that you can edit the shape
of the animation curves to edit the animation of any keyed attribute. To
create a sharp bounce, you can edit the curve so that the transition from
decreasing to increasing values is abrupt at frame 50. Specifically, you’ll
create a corner at that key point rather than a rounded curve.
4 Select the point on the Translate Y (green) curve at frame 50. This causes
a pair of tangent handles to appear at the point. Each end point of the
newly displayed straight line is a tangent handle. The handles let you
control the curvature near the key point.
Animation curves have a few control structures for curve editing. You
can do any of these operations:
■ Use the Move tool and middle mouse button to move a key point.
You can alternatively use your keyboard to enter precise values for a
selected key’s frame and value in the boxes above the graph area.
■ Use the Move tool and middle mouse button to drag the tangent
handles and change the adjacent curvature.
(You can shift-drag with the Move tool to constrain a move operation
to a single direction.)
■ Use the Scale tool and middle mouse button to scale selected key
points closer together or further apart.
Using the Graph Editor | 193