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Focal Easy Guide to Maya 5

Focal Easy Guide to Maya 5

by Jason Patnode
Publisher: Focal Press
Release Date: October 2012
ISBN: 9780240519524
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Book Description

* Companion website provides new updates and tutorials for version 6!

If you are an artist who's new to Alias's Maya, or are moving over to use this powerful, oscar-winning animation and effects software from another 3D package, you will find this book invaluable. It provides you with all you need to know to get up and running with this difficult software, fast!

Focusing only on the key things you need to know when starting out it doesn't overload you, so speeds up your learning process.

Highly illustrated in color throughout this book benefits from a clear, concise, jargon free style. Written by a LucasArts professional it will provide invaluable knowledge that will help you get that elusive first job in animation!

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Introduction
  8. System Specs
  9. Common Hotkeys
  10. Chapter 1: Maya Basics
    1. The Hotbox
    2. The Marking Menu
    3. The Title Bar
    4. The Status Line
    5. The Menus
    6. Working with Projects
    7. The File Menu
    8. The Edit Menu
    9. The Modify Menu
    10. The Create Menu
    11. The Display Menu
    12. The Window Menu
  11. Chapter 2: Modeling
    1. Modeling Concepts
    2. Polygonal Modeling
    3. Tutorial: Creating a Snake
    4. NURBS Modeling
    5. Tutorial: Binoculars
    6. Subdivision Surfaces
    7. Tutorial: Creating a Hand with Subdivision Surfaces
  12. Chapter 3: Materials and Textures
    1. The Hypershade
    2. Material Types
    3. Texturing Objects Using NURBS
    4. Texturing Polygonal and SubD Models
    5. The UV Texture Editor
  13. Chapter 4: Lighting
    1. Types of Light
    2. Tutorial: Creating a Three-Point Lighting System
    3. Shadows
    4. Tutorial: Indoor Lighting
    5. Tutorial: Outdoor Lighting
  14. Chapter 5: Animation
    1. Animation Terms
    2. Keyframe Animation
    3. Deformers
    4. Tutorial: A Falling Lamp
    5. Forward Kinematics
    6. Inverse Kinematics
    7. Set Driven Animation
    8. Blend Animations (Morphing)
    9. Sound
    10. Motion Paths
    11. The Dope Sheet
    12. The Graph Editor
    13. The Trax Editor
  15. Chapter 6: Dynamics
    1. Particle Effects
    2. Tutorial: Dragging Particles
  16. Chapter 7: Rendering
    1. Rendering a Scene
    2. Settings
    3. Rendering Using Maya Software
    4. Rendering Using Maya Hardware
    5. Rendering Using Mental Ray
    6. Rendering Using Maya Vector
    7. Cameras
    8. Other Rendering Options
  17. Chapter 8: Paint Effects
    1. The Paint Effects Panel
    2. Working with Brushes
    3. Mesh Brushes
  18. Chapter 9: MEL Scripting
    1. The Command Line
    2. The Script Editor
  19. Chapter 10: Advanced Topics
    1. Body Dynamics
    2. Expressions
    3. Light Arrays
  20. Resources
  21. Index