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
If you are wondering “where do I begin?”, this chapter is the best place to
start. We recommend that you complete the lessons in this chapter so the
essential concepts and skills presented become familiar to you.
This chapter covers some of the fundamental concepts and skills for Maya in
four lessons:
■ Lesson 1 The Maya user interface: Introduction on page 15
■ Lesson 2 Creating, manipulating, and viewing objects: Introduction on
page 29
■ Lesson 3 Viewing the Maya 3D scene:
Introduction on page 42
■ Lesson 4 Components and attributes: Introduction on page 61
Preparing for the lessons
To ensure the lessons work as described:
■ Ensure Maya is installed and licensed on your computer.
If you have not installed Maya yet, refer to the Installation and Licensing
manual that accompanies your Maya software package. It outlines the
requirements for installing Maya and procedures for installation and
licensing Maya on supported hardware platforms.
■ If you have never started Maya on your computer before, it will start for
the first time using the default preference settings.
■ If you have run Maya before, you should ensure that your Maya user
preferences are reset to their default setting. This ensures that the lessons
appear and work as described.
Refer to
Restoring default user settings on page 11 for instructions on
resetting user preferences to the default setting.
■ Unless otherwise indicated, the directions in this chapter for making menu
selections assume you’re working from the Polygons menu set.
NOTE Before you perform the lessons in this book, ensure that the Interactive
Creation option for primitives is turned off by selecting Create > Polygon
Primitives > Interactive Creation and Create > NURBS Primitives > Interactive
Creation. That is, ensure a check mark does not appear beside these menu
items.
14 | Chapter 2 Maya Basics