Autodesk Maya 2013 Essentials E-Book

Paul Naas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Recommnded text for those preparing for the Maya Associate exam

Maya, the industry-leading 3D animation and effects software used in movies, games, cartoons, and commercials, is challenging to learn. This full-color guide features approachable, hands-on exercises and additional task-based tutorials that allow new users to quickly become productive with the program and familiar with its workflow in a professional environment. You'll learn the basics of modeling, texturing, animating, and lighting; explore different parts of the production pipeline; and practice on some real-world projects.

• Maya is the 3D animation and effects software used in the film, game, and advertising industries; it's a complex program and this book gives beginners essential training in Maya basics
• This book is an Autodesk Official Training Guide, recommended for students planning to take the Maya Associate exam
• Provides task-based tutorials and hands-on exercises to get you up to speed and introduce you to production workflows
• Teaches the basics of modeling, texturing, animating, and lighting
• Helps you create simple animations, model with polygons, and add detail with blend shapes and surfaces
• Starting and ending files for the exercises and additional learning tutorials are available online

Autodesk Maya Essentials provides beginners with a solid foundation in Maya 3D software.

Leseprobe

Acquisitions Editor: Mariann Barsolo

Development Editor: Kim Beaudet

Technical Editor: Jon McFarland

Production Editor: Liz Britten

Copy Editor: Sharon Wilkey

Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Publisher: Neil Edde

Book Designer and Compositor: Jeffrey Lytle, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Nancy Bell

Indexer: Ted Laux

Project Coordinator, Cover: Katherine Crocker

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: Paul Naas

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-16774-8 ISBN: 978-1-118-22637-7 (ebk.) ISBN: 978-1-118-23968-1 (ebk.) ISBN: 978-1-118-26426-3 (ebk.)

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Autodesk Maya 2013 Essentials. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at [email protected]. If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

Best regards,

Neil Edde

Vice President and Publisher

Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

To everyone who I’ve worked with, I’ve learned from, and has encouraged me over the years, but especially to Donna and Kyle.

And to my students, who keep me on my toes and teach me things every day without ever realizing it. Now go do your homework!

—Paul

Acknowledgments

A couple of years ago at SIGGRAPH, I was trying to find a book to use as a textbook for an introduction to a 3D class I was teaching. I hit every publisher’s booth, complaining to anyone who would listen that there wasn’t a good, basic, introductory book for learning Autodesk® Maya® software. In the Wiley/Sybex booth, Mariann Barsolo listened to my whining and then simply said, “Why don’t you write one?” The end result of that brief (but certainly not final) conversation is the book you hold in your hands. My thanks to Mariann for giving me this terrific opportunity.

Thanks also go to the editing team at Wiley: Kim Beaudet, Liz Britten, Pete Gaughan, Rebecca Anderson, and Jon McFarland. I may have typed the words into the computer, but they made sure it all made sense.

None of this would have been possible without the support and encouragement of the staff and faculty of Cañada College. I am especially grateful to my dean, Linda Hayes, and our division office staff, Jonna Pounds and Peter Tam, who frequently looked the other way or picked up the slack when I was on deadline. I can never fully express my gratitude for how you all made this easier for me.

About the Author

Paul Naas is an assistant professor and coordinator for the Multimedia Arts & Technology department at Cañada College in Redwood City, California. Trained as a traditional animator, Paul got some early professional experience while still in college, working on station IDs for MTV. He transitioned into CG in 1994 with his first job in the video game industry, working on 3D Studio DOS. Later he became one of the first animators hired at the Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida, where he taught animation, character design, animation history, and voice-over. Over the course of his nearly 20-year career, Paul has worked on independent films, TV spots, video games, e-learning projects, location-based entertainment, and mobile-device applications. Paul holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in animation from Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Understanding the Maya Interface

Exploring Interface Elements

Views

Time Slider

Range Slider

Toolbox Window

Shelves

Moving Views and Manipulating Objects

Using Maya Windows and Menus

Setting Preferences

Preferences Window

Settings Used for the Tutorials

Getting Help

Chapter 2: Creating Your First Animation

Using Good Scene-File Management

Creating and Animating a Bouncing Ball

Selecting a View and Turning On the Resolution Gate

Creating a Ball

Setting Movement Keyframes

Refining Movement in the Graph Editor

What’s Wrong with the Way My Ball Is Bouncing?

Adjusting Spline Tangents

Breaking Tangents for Fast Direction Changes

Using Animation Principles to Improve Your Work

Squash

Stretch

Creating a Playblast of Your Animation

Chapter 3: Modeling with Polygons, Part 1

Understanding Polygons

Vertex

Edges

Constructing a Good Model

The Importance of Quads

The Problem With Ngons

Getting Started and Using Main Modeling Tools

Setting Up View Planes

Starting with a Cube

Extruding Faces

Box Modeling and Building a Character

Refining the Character’s Geometry

Using the Insert Edge Loop Tool

Using the Interactive Split Tool

Shaping Your Character

Chapter 4: Modeling with Polygons, Part 2

Creating Edge Loops

Getting Started: Deleting Edges and Setting Tool Options

Building Your Edge Loops

Adjusting Vertices, Polygons, and Edges

Chapter 5: Modeling with Polygons, Part 3

Refining and Cleaning Up

Adding Geometry for Good Deformations

Cleaning Up the Model

Positioning Your Character for Rigging

Mirroring Your Model

Deleting History

Chapter 6: Modeling with Subdivision Surfaces

Understanding the Characteristics of Subdiv Models

Creating Your Subdiv Model

Converting Polygons to Subdivs

Using the Extrude Tool to Build the Legs

Building the Back

Using the Insert Edge Loop Tool

Refining Your Subdiv Model

Working with Display Levels

Creasing Your Surface

Chapter 7: Surfacing Your Character

Creating a Surface

Using the Hypershade Window

Using the Marking Menu

Laying Out UVs

Understanding the UV Space

Performing the UV Layout

Texture Mapping

Creating a Color Map

Applying Your Color Map

Chapter 8: Getting Bent Out of Shape: Blend Shapes

Understanding Blend Shapes and How They Work

Deformer Order

Blend Shapes

Creating Deformers for Your Character

Planning for Facial Deformers

Creating Your Facial Blend Shapes

Setting Up the Blend Shape Interface

Chapter 9: Dem Bones: Setting Up Your Joint System

Understanding How Joints Work

Building Your Joint Chains

Picking the Correct View for a Chain

Starting in the Middle (of the Character)

Naming Joints

Creating the Leg Chain

Creating the Arm Chain

Putting It All Together

Mirroring Joint Chains

Using Variables for Naming

Connecting All Your Chains

Putting It to Use: Connecting Your Joints to Your Model

Using Smooth Bind

Skinning Joints to Your Model

Chapter 10: Weighting Your Joints

Understanding Joint Weighting and Why It’s Important

Joint Influence on Deformation

Why You Used the Options You Did at the End of the Last Chapter

Adjusting Weights

Strategies for Assigning Weights

Paint Skin Weights Tool—Add

Paint Skin Weights Tool—Replace

Painting Your Weights

Mirroring Weights

Chapter 11: Rigging Your Character

Understanding Basic Rigging Concepts

Forward Kinematics

Inverse Kinematics

Setting Up the Leg Controls

Creating Leg IK Chains

Creating an External Control Handle

Connecting the IK Chains to the Handle

Using Pole Vector Constraints for Controlling the Knee

Setting Up the Torso Control

Creating the Torso Control Handle

Connecting the Torso Control

Setting Up the Character Control

Creating the Character Control Handle

Connecting the Character Control Handle

Creating a Custom Shelf

Chapter 12: Making It Move: Animating Your Character

Setting Up Maya for Animation

Setting Key Tangents

Creating a Camera and Turning On the Resolution Gate

Locking Down the Camera

Animating Your Character

Creating a Pop-Thru

Timing the Pop-Thru

Adding Breakdown Poses

Polishing the Animation

Chapter 13: Let There Be Light: Lighting Your Shot

Understanding the Three-Point Lighting System

Key Light

Fill Light

Rim Light

Using the Maya Lights

Directional Light

Spot Light

Point Light

Lighting Your Scene

Prepping the Scene

Placing Your Lights

Setting the Intensity of Your Lights

Casting Shadows

Performing Light Linking

Chapter 14: Rendering and Compositing Your Scene

Making 2D Images Out of 3D Scenes

Smoothing Your Model

Setting Your Render Preferences

Running a Batch Render

Finding Your Frames

Performing Compositing

Compositing Your Frames

Using Other Compositing Options

Index

Introduction

Welcome to Autodesk Maya 2013 Essentials. Autodesk Maya software is one of many 3D computer graphics (CG) packages available on the market, and while it has many unique features, it shares one trait with every other package out there: it is very powerful and very complex. The goal of this book is to walk you through some of the features of the software and familiarize you with the tools Maya provides and how to use them.