Acknowledgments Author The Book's Web Site Getting Oriented Focus and Approach of This Book A Necessarily Nonlinear Approach to Learning 3D Animation Perhaps the Most Important Principle 3DbyBuzz.com What Maya(R) Does and Does Not Do The Special Needs of Gaming Workflow Within and Around Maya Other Applications Commonly Used by Animators The Big Picture Inside Maya Other Application Needs Working with Prefab Content The Cabana of Cool Concepts The Small Subset Approach to Learning 3D Animation Every Animation App Is Unique How to Use This Book Prerequisites Contents of This Book A Motivational Example Art and Engineering A Final Note The Maya Interface and Modeling Concepts in Maya The 3D World of Modeling and Animation Seeing the 3D World through the Eyes of Maya A Warning: The Maya Interface Can Be Intimidating, Don't Be Dispirited The Main Window A Note on Changing Geometry Modes The Hypershade An Object and Its Attributes The Render View for Creating Single Render Tests Render Settings and the Batch Renderer for Creating Multiframe Renderings for Video How to Find Something in the Maya Interface Maya's Data Folders Two Kinds of Modeling in Maya Terminology Meshes Surface-And Not Solid-Modeling Vector versus Raster Graphics Polygon and NURBS Modeling Choosing between Polygon and NURBS Modeling NURBS Modeling Modes Maya Is Always Rendering Subdivision Is Alive and Well CUDA Curved Lines, Bezier, and NURBS Core Tools: Translate, Scale, and Rotate in Maya Some Trig Translation, Scaling, and Rotation in 3-Space In Sum Reference Modeling, Creating Materials, and Rendering Modeling as a Subjective Process Deliberate Modeling Models and Objects Top-Down Modeling Adding Detail with Precision Choosing the Model Hierarchy Building Models in Separate Scenes and Using Display Layers Create Versions of Models That You Can Retreat To In Sum More on Layers in Maya Using Curved Lines and mental ray to Make a NURBS Glass Dish From Curved Lines to Smooth Surfaces Creating a Series of NURBS Curves Revolution! Putting a Glass Material on the Dish Two Software Renderers Two Important Perspectives Rendering by Tracing Rays Glass in mental ray The Background More mental ray Computations: Quality More mental ray Computations: Indirect Lighting Shadows as Roots of Models mental ray's Advantage The Renderer's Main Job Using Polygon Extrusion to (Start to) Make a Hand Polygon Modeling: Basic Shapes Recursive Refinement The Hand Using NURBS Lofting and Extrusion to Make a Saguaro Cactus Using Reference Images NURBS Extrude Sculpting Lofting Projection Loft Again In Sum Hierarchies of Objects, a Polygon Example, Detailed Polygon Modeling, and a NURBS Example Basic Concepts Modeling Hierarchies Objects Formal Notions Hierarchies Another Example Extending the Notion of a Hierarchy The Importance of the Outliner Using Bevel, Extrude, Detach, and Combine to Make a Mailbox A Working Set of Polygon Modeling Tools Creating a New Edge Beveling Extrusion Detach The Clip Beveled Letters Making a Polygon Moai Rapa Nui A Modeling Exercise: Making a Moai on Your Own Making a Moai with Polygon Modeling Smoothing and Rendering Smoothing a Polygon Model: Many Choices Smooth Tool Using the Smooth Tool Locally Adding Faces and Manipulating New Faces, and Beveling Edges Manipulating Normals to Smooth Edges Smoothing with mental ray, without Changing the Geometry Surgically Mending an Imperfect Model Merging Edges in a Single Piece of Geometry Removing a Face with Merge to Center Filling in a Hole in a Polygon Model with a Bridge Tool Making Small and Graceful Changes to a Model Sliding an Edge Soft Move Aligning Objects Using the Sweep of a Cylinder and Resizing to Make a Breadbox A NURBS Surface The Sweep of a NURBS Surface Nested Objects Finishing the Geometry of the Breadbox Materials, Bump Maps, Lights, Projection versus Normal Textures, Connecting NURBS Surfaces, and Layered Textures The Bottom Line Working with Maya Materials to Make a Tabletop Ways to Surface a Model Textures and Materials for the Maya Software Renderer Bump Maps Finishing the Table Scene Materials or Textures? Lights Ambient Light and Shadows Directional Light and Shadows Point Light and Shadows Spotlights and Shadows Area Light mental ray Light Shaders mental ray 2D and 3D Lights Depth Map versus Raytraced Shadows The Varnished Table Being Creative with Textures for Bump Maps: Making a Road and a Sidewalk More Bump Maps Completing the Scene: Creating a Light Pole and Painting 3D Geometry to Make Grass Creating a Layered Texture in Pixelmator Photographs for Textures Working outside of Maya The Uses of Bit-Mapped Images Blending Layers Rusty, Painted Metal Layering Capability Native to Maya Brief Note: Various Color Systems Cylindrical Projection of an Image Texture on the Cactus Projection or Normal Texture? Projecting Textures Conversion to Polygons Types of Projections Tiling Adjusting the Projection of a Texture Stitching NURBS Surfaces to Make Carpeted Stairs Isoparms Connecting Stairs Putting a Material on the Stairs Using the Append to Polygon Tool for Connecting Two Stairs Using a File Texture as a Material's Color and Making a Material Stick A Texture as a Color of a Material Assigning an Image to a Material's Color Attribute Adjusting and Fixing the Material Placement Adjusting the Material's Ambient Color Attribute Using Polygon Face Extrusion and a File Texture as a Lambert Color to Make an Ice Rink Extruding the Wall Using a File Texture for the Fence Using Two Layers for Ice Textures versus Geometry: Bump Maps versus Displacement Maps Bump Maps versus Displacement Maps in Maya Bump Maps Displacement Maps The Resulting Render: Comparing Bump Maps to Displacement Maps Particle Dynamics Use Emitters Sparingly Saving Render Time Rocket Pollution and Hardware Particles The Attributes of the Emitter and the Particles Using Software Particles in nDynamics to Create Trix nDynamics in Maya Particle Dynamics Engines and Solvers Emitting Trix into the Glass Bowl Colliders Scaling the Trix Ramp Textures The Trix's Ramp Gravity Action! An Aside Creating a Cloth Flag with nDynamics nDynamics Meets Geometry A Flag Putting a Texture on the Flag Making the Flag Flap Creating Rain with nDynamics Downward Gravity versus the Upward Bounce of a Collider Two Planes: Rain Clouds and the Ground Rain Particles The Ground Making It Rain Instancing Specialized Dynamics Applications A First Look at Adding Animation Moving an Object along a Motion Path Creating a Path Putting an Object on a Path From the Camera's Perspective: A River Ride Keyframing an Object The Timeline Creating Keyframes Using the Graph Editor to Reuse Animation The Graph Editor Motion Cycles Driven Keys Using Skeletons to Simulate Natural Movement Inverse Kinematics versus Forward Kinematics Inverse Kinematics in a Leg The Power of Inverse Kinematics Skeletons The Fuzzy Border between Modeling and Animating Using NURBS, Shatter, and Fur to Make an Egg and Crack It Smooth Modeling for an Egg Cracking the Egg with the Shatter Tool A Chick and Fur Maya Fur and nHair: An nDynamics Effect Using Blend Shape to Animate the Leg of the Chick Being Born Animating a Chick Leg with a Blend Shape Using a Bend Deformer to Animate Rolling Up a Pool Cover The Bend Deformer Animating a Swimming Pool Cover Bouncing a Squishy Ball with a Squash Deformer Keyframing the Ball Running and Rendering the Scene Using the Lattice Deformer to Damage Our Mailbox Morphing the Mailbox The Rendered Result A Note on Using the Lattice Deformer Using Deformers for Modeling: An Important Detail Light Fog, Fluids, and Another Look at Materials Fixing a Tiled Texture with Overlays Experimenting with Textures Adding Noise to the Tiling Lines Two Final Notes on Tiling Making a Seamless Texture with Maya Paint Painting a Seamless Tiled Texture Creating and Tiling a File Texture Making Glass Bottles with NURBS and mental ray The Three Bottles mental ray Settings A Bottle inside a Bottle The Render Glass and Particles for a Single-Frame Image The Scene Fluid Containers mental ray Glass The Background Rendering Settings Using Light Fog and Glow to Create a Night Scene Fog A Sidewalk and Street Scene with Fog Making a Material Behave Like a Light The Render An Example Model: A Closet Multiple Coordinate Systems in Maya Opening and Closing Doors with the Rotate Tool, and Bounding Boxes Adding Detail to the Doors with the Interactive Split Tool The Render One More Look at World Space versus Object Space Making a Shirt out of nCloth and Rendering from a Camera's Perspective A Shirt Made of nCloth: Starting with a Basic Shape A NURBS Hanger Extruding Sleeves, Making Arm and Neck Holes, and Refining the Shape of the Shirt A Passive Collider Hanger and Fields Letting the Cloth Drape on the Hanger and Creating a Camera The Camera's Perspective and Rendering Timing Animation to a Soundtrack and Rendering Multiple Frames Opening up the Time Slider: Making Room for Audio Sound in Maya Guiding the Keyframing of a Scene with the Sound Wave Rendering with the Batch Renderer Using the Graph Editor in Maya to Fine-Tune Animation Frame and Value The Rotation Curve A Useful Tool: fCheck Light Linking to Accentuate the Closet Doors Controlling Lights Why Control Lights Artificially? Three-Point Lighting Fill Lights in Maya Placing and Positioning Models in a Scene Controlling Lights from the Hypershade Specialized Animation Techniques Skeletons, Inverse Kinematics Handles, Rigging, and Skinning a Simple Humanoid HIK: The Skeleton Maker in Maya Maya's Skeleton Generator Skinning The Rig Solvers Making Your Character's Body More Organic Controlling the Movement of a Skeleton: Pinning and Constraining, and the Sticky Checkbox A Last Remark Active Rigid Objects and Gravity: A Bowling Ball and Pins The Bowling Ball and Pins: Collisions Four Rigid Bodies Making the Ball Move: Gravity! Calculating Collisions Using Soft Body Dynamics to Age a Moai Statue Turning the Moai into a Soft Body Before and After Using the Channel Box for Keyframing the Transparency of a Moai Making Our Moai Disappear Using an Expression to Rotate a Doorknob The Rendering A Note on Using the Outliner Window Using Maya Expressions and Variables to Animate Models Example 1: Applying an Expression to the Visibility Attribute of an Object That Has a Material with a Glow Intensity Example 2: Our Squashing Ball More Maya Embedded Language (MEL) Creating an Ocean Water Swell Using nCloth as Water and Applying Gravity The Ball Falls through the Water and Creates a Rippling Swell Specialized Materials and Material Effects Making a Toon Cow The Vector Renderer The Toon Shader Making a Graffiti-Covered Wall with Paint Effects The Paint Effects Canvas Painting on an Image Choosing a More Realistic Effect The mental ray Sky Dome The Rendering Baking a Material A Homemade Sky Dome The UV Texture Editor The (u, v) Surfacing Problem A Planar Projection of a Normal File Texture and Using the Move and Scale Tools to Adjust It Using the Scale Tool in the UV Editor Rotating and Flipping A Closer Look at the UV Editor: Creating and Manipulating UV Maps A Doorknob's (u, v) Texture Mapping The UV Smudge Tool A Comparison of Different UV Editor Mappings Multi-App Maya Workflow, Managing Complex Scenes, and Sculpting Applications The Inter-App Workflow Dilemma Plug-Ins That Work Pretty Well Specialized Modeling: Bipeds Exterior Environments: Vue and Terragen Specialized Modeling: Sculpting with ZBrush Stand-Alone Renderers: Maxwell, Octane, and Indigo Translating Materials: The Rendering Plug-In's Main Job Sculpting Applications and Sculpting with Maya ZBrush and Mudbox Reducing Meshes in Maya Maya's Soft Modification Tool Advanced Light and Materials Properties and Effects Ambient Occlusion Global Illumination and Final Gathering Caustics Light Emitting Materials: Irradiance Coloring mental ray's Glass Material Coloring a Material with Lights Using Anisotropy with mental ray to Control the Transparency of Frosted Glass Using the Penumbra and Drop-off Settings on a Maya Spotlight Adjusting the Resolution Attribute of a Directional Light in Maya Adding Raytrace Shadows and mental ray Sun and Sky to the Bottle The Cabana A Beginner's Project: Basic, Top-Down Architectural Modeling Reuse Reference Images Modeling with Texturing and Animating in Mind The Cabana Using Prefab Content to Flesh Out a Scene Building the Cabana: Workflow A Note on Animating Humans The Cool Concepts of the Cabana Cool Concepts Index