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
SelectSet attributeSelectFrame
key selectedArmControl W0: 1CargoBox parent-
Constraint
60
Platform W1: 0
key selectedArmControl W0: 1CargoBox parent-
Constraint
120
Platform W1: 0
key selectedArmControl W0: 0CargoBox parent-
Constraint
121
Platform W1: 1
To playback the animation using the playback controls
1 Click play on the TimeSlider playback controls to play back the animation.
The mechanical arm moves through the motion of the animation and
picks up and moves the cargo box to the new location.
2 Click stop on the TimeSlider playback controls to stop the playback.
You have completed this lesson.
Beyond the lesson
In this lesson, you completed the animation of a mechanical arm model that
picked up and moved a cargo box. You learned how to:
■ Construct a model hierarchy to provide relationships between the
components for posing and keyframing.
■ Construct a single chain skeleton to pose the arm model using Inverse
Kinematics.
It is common to create characters with multiple joint chains. For example,
two and four-legged characters would use multiple joint chain skeletons
to assist with posing their hierarchical structure. See Skeleton hierarchy in
the Maya Help. For a tutorial on creating a multiple chain skeleton see
Lesson 1: Skeletons and Kinematics (
Introduction on page 304).
■ Parent the components of the mechanical arm model into the skeleton
hierarchy.
Parenting is one method for combining a model into a skeleton hierarchy.
When using characters that have bending or deforming features a more
common technique is to use Skin > Bind Skin. For more information see
Beyond the lesson | 301