Maya 6 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Maya 6 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Released November 2004
Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
ISBN: 9780321247469

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Book description

Imagine being able to add a luscious mane of long, flowing hair to your Maya-created action heroine--and then being able to braid it, curl it, and style it to your heat's desire. With Maya 6 and this task-based guide, you can do that and a lot more on the way to creating ever more sophisticated 3D worlds with Alias' newly updated modeling and animation software. In this eagerly anticipated update to everybody's favorite Maya tome, best-selling author Danny Riddell uses a combination of task-based instruction and strong visual aids to take you step by step through all of today's Maya's essentials: Character animation and setup, polygonal modeling, dynamic interaction with Windows, and more. Whether you're a beginning user who wants a thorough introduction to the topic or a more advanced user looking for a convenient reference, you'll find what you need here--in straightforward language and through readily accessible examples, peppered with tons of timesaving tips and tricks.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. i. Introduction
    1. Who is this Book For?
    2. What You Will Need
    3. Maya Versions and Flavors
      1. What’s new in Maya 6?
    4. Additional Resources
  4. 1. Maya Basics
    1. About Maya
      1. Maya’s coordinate system
    2. Maya’s Interface
      1. Using the Shelf
      2. About the Help Line
      3. About the Channel Box
      4. About the Attribute Editor
      5. About the Hotbox
      6. About the Hypergraph
      7. About dependencies
      8. About the Outliner
      9. About construction history
    3. Beginning a Project
    4. Importing, Exporting, and Referencing
    5. Setting Maya Preferences
    6. Keyboard Shortcuts
    7. Maya Help
  5. 2. Navigating and Changing the Interface
    1. Dollying, Tracking, and Tumbling
    2. Changing the Layout
      1. Using the Show menu
    3. About Display Options and Smoothness
      1. Shading and smoothness shortcuts
      2. Using the View menu
  6. 3. Creating Primitives and Text
    1. About NURBS
    2. About NURBS Primitives
      1. Creating NURBS primitives
    3. Changing Attributes of NURBS Primitives
      1. NURBS primitive attributes
    4. About Polygons
    5. About Polygon Primitives
      1. Creating polygon primitives
    6. Changing a Polygon Primitive’s Attributes
      1. Polygon primitive attributes
    7. About Subdiv Surfaces
    8. About Subdiv Primitives
    9. Creating Subdiv Primitives
    10. About Text
    11. Naming Objects
    12. About Pivot Points
  7. 4. Selection Modes, Hiding, and Templating
    1. Selecting Objects and Using the Pick Mask
      1. Selecting objects using Hierarchy mode
      2. Selecting objects using Object Type mode
      3. Selecting parts of objects using Component mode
      4. Pick mask shortcuts
    2. About Layers
  8. 5. Transforming Objects and Components
    1. Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects
      1. Using the Show Manipulator tool
    2. Duplication Options
      1. Mirroring and instancing objects
    3. Soft Modifying Objects
  9. 6. Grouping, Parenting, and Aligning
    1. Grouping vs. Parenting
    2. About Aligning and Snapping Objects
      1. The four snaps
      2. The Snap Align tools
  10. 7. NURBS Curves and Surfaces
    1. About NURBS Objects
    2. Creating NURBS Curves
      1. Anatomy of a curve
      2. Creating curves of various degrees
      3. Creating profile curves
      4. Circular 2D fillets
      5. Opening and closing curves
      6. Locking the length of a curve
    3. Creating Surfaces from Curves
  11. 8. Polygons
    1. About Modeling Polygons
    2. Working with Vertex Normals
  12. 9. Subdiv Surfaces
    1. Subdiv Surface Components
    2. Sculpting Subdiv Surfaces
    3. Working in Polygon Mode
    4. Using the Crease Tools
    5. Mirroring Subdiv Services
    6. Collapsing the Hierarchy
  13. 10. Skeletons and Inverse Kinematics
    1. About Joints
    2. About IK Handles and Solvers
    3. About Spline IK
  14. 11. Parenting and Binding to a Skeleton
    1. About Clusters and Weights
      1. About the Paint Attributes tool
    2. About Binding
  15. 12. Animation
    1. Animation Controls
    2. About Setting Keyframes
    3. Setting Animation Preferences
    4. Importing Sound Files
    5. About the Graph Editor
      1. Tangent types
    6. About the Dope Sheet
    7. About Constraints
      1. Constraint Types
      2. Muting animation channels
    8. Ghosting
    9. Path Animation
    10. About the Trax Editor
    11. About Blend Shapes
    12. Previewing Your Animation
  16. 13. Deformers
    1. Nonlinear Deformers
      1. Bend deformer
      2. Flare deformer
      3. Sine deformer
      4. Wave deformer
      5. The Squash deformer
      6. Twist deformer
    2. The Lattice
    3. Wire and Sculpt Deformers
    4. Jiggle Deformers
    5. Wrap Deformers
    6. Deforming Particles
    7. Hiding, Showing, and Deleting Deformers
  17. 14. Creating Lights
    1. Setting the Scene’s Mood
    2. About the Hypershade
    3. Setting Up for a Render
    4. About Lights
      1. Ambient light
      2. Area lights
      3. Directional lights
      4. Point lights
      5. Spotlights
      6. Volume light
    5. Looking Through a Light
    6. Light Linking
    7. About Shadows
      1. Creating shadows
  18. 15. Shaders, Materials, and Mapping
    1. About the Hypershade
      1. Using the Hypershade
    2. About Materials
      1. Common material attributes
      2. About texture-mapping NURBS surfaces
    3. About Projection Maps
      1. About the 3D Paint tool
    4. About Texturing Polygons
      1. Using the UV Texture Editor toolbar
      2. Setting material attributes via the Channel Box
      3. Avoiding swimming textures
      4. About projecting UV maps
      5. Using Adobe Photoshop
  19. 16. Cameras and Rendering
    1. About Cameras
      1. Animating the camera
      2. Focal length
      3. Image planes
    2. About Rendering
      1. About the Software Renderer
      2. Using the Hardware Render Buffer
      3. About raytracing
      4. About Interactive Photorealistic Rendering
      5. About the Hardware Renderer
      6. About the Vector Renderer
      7. About Mental Ray
    3. Launching Renders with Scripts
  20. 17. MEL and Expressions Primer
    1. About the Script Editor
    2. About the Shelf Editor
    3. Using Expressions
      1. About the Expression Editor
      2. About script nodes
  21. 18. Dynamics
    1. Particles
    2. Render Types
      1. Hardware render types
      2. Software render types
    3. Fields
      1. Common attributes
    4. Collisions
    5. Rigid-Body Dynamics
    6. Soft-Body Dynamics
    7. Effects
    8. The Dynamic Relationships Editor
    9. Fluid Effects
      1. About containers
      2. About fluid container attributes
      3. Sample fluid effects
      4. Maya Ocean and Ocean shader
      5. Ponds
  22. Color Insert

Product information

  • Title: Maya 6 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: November 2004
  • Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
  • ISBN: 9780321247469