Title Details

Todd Palamar began his career creating traditional special effects for low-budget horror movies and quickly gravitated to computer animation. After working on numerous straight-to-video movies, he entered the video game industry. Todd has extensive freelance experience, including dozens of military and game-style simulations, corporate commercials, and theme park rides. In addition, he has written several Maya books, including Maya Studio Projects: Photorealistic Characters and Mastering Autodesk Maya 2013.

Chapter 1 • Working in Autodesk Maya  1

Creating and Editing Nodes 2

Using the Hypergraph 3

Connecting Nodes with the Node Editor 7

Creating Node Hierarchies in the Outliner 12

Displaying Options in the Outliner 16

The Channel Box 19

The Attribute Editor 23

Working with Shader Nodes in the Hypershade 25

Creating Maya Projects 35

Creating a New Project  35

Editing and Changing Projects  37

File Path Editor  38

Organizing Complex Node Structures with Assets 38

Creating an Asset  38

Publishing Asset Attributes  43

Using the Asset Editor 44

Viewing Assets in the Node Editor  46

File References  46

Referencing a File  47

Bounding Box Representations  50

The Bottom Line 51

Chapter 2 • Virtual Filmmaking 53

Determining the Image Size and Film Speed of the Camera  53

Setting the Size and Resolution of the Image 54

Setting the Film Speed 56

Creating and Animating Cameras 57

Creating a Camera  57

Setting Camera Attributes 63

Limiting the Range of Renderable Objects with Clipping Planes  67

Composing the Shot Using the Film-Back Settings 69

Creating a Camera-Shake Effect 71

Using an Expression to Control Alpha Offset  75

Creating Custom Camera Rigs 77

Swivel Camera Rig  78

Swivel Camera Rig Asset 80

Applying Depth of Field and Motion Blur 83

Rendering Using Depth of Field 84

Creating a Rack Focus Rig 87

Adding Motion Blur to an Animation 91

Using Orthographic and Stereo Cameras  98

Orthographic Cameras 98

Stereo Cameras  99

Using the Camera Sequencer 101

The Bottom Line 105

Chapter 3 • Modeling I  107

Understanding Polygon Geometry 107

Polygon Vertices  108

Polygon Edges 108

Polygon Faces 110

Working with Smooth Polygons 110

Using Subdivision Surfaces  112

Understanding NURBS 113

Understanding Curves 113

Understanding NURBS Surfaces  117

Surface Seams  119

NURBS Display Controls 120

Employing Image Planes  120

Modeling NURBS Surfaces 126

Lofting Surfaces  131

Intersecting Surfaces  136

Trim Surfaces 137

Working with Trim Edges 139

Fillet Surfaces  142

Creating Rail Surfaces  147

Lofting Across Multiple Curves 154

Live Surfaces  156

NURBS Tessellation 160

Modeling with Polygons 161

Shaping Using Smooth Mesh Polygon Geometry 161

Insert Edge Loops 166

Extruding Polygons  169

Edge Creasing  172

Mirror Cut  177

The Bottom Line 182

Chapter 4 • Modeling II 183

Modeling with Deformers  183

Using a Lattice 183

Soft Modification Tool 188

Combining Meshes  189

Using Bevel Plus 193

Creating the Curves  193

Projecting the Curve 196

Bevel Edges  200

Using Curves 205

Create an Extrusion Curve  205

Extrude Along a Curve  207

Drawing Curves on a Live Surface 209

Converting NURBS Surfaces to Polygons  211

Employing Revolved Surfaces  211

NURBS Extrusions 215

Boolean Operations  217

Using Booleans  218

Cutting Polygons 223

Sculpting Polygons Using Artisan  224

Advanced Polygon-Editing Tools  229

Append a Polygon 229

Interactive Split Tool 230

Spin a Polygon Edge 232

Bridge Polygons 232

Reduce  234

The Bottom Line 235

Chapter 5 • Animation Techniques  237

Using Joints and Constraints  237

Joint Basics 237

Point Constraints  239

Aim Constraints  239

Inverse Kinematics 242

IK Handle Tool  243

Creating a Master Control 246

Keyframe Animation 249

Creating Keyframes  249

Auto Keyframe  251

Moving and Scaling Keyframes on the Timeline  253

Copy, Paste, and Cut Keyframes 254

The Graph Editor  256

Animation Curves  257

Editing Animation Curves  262

Weighted Tangents 267

Additional Editing Tools 268

Breakdowns and In-Betweens  271

Pre- and Post-Infinity 273

Playblast and FCheck 276

Driven Keys 278

Creating a Driven Key  279

Looping Driven Keys 281

Copying and Pasting Driven Keys 282

Motion-Path Animation  284

Motion Trails 287

Animating Constraints 289

Animation Layers 293

Creating an Animation Layer 293

Layer Mode  294

Other Options in the Layer Editor 297

Layer Hierarchy  298

Merging Layers 301

Grease Pencil 302

The Bottom Line 304

Chapter 6 • Animating with Deformers  307

Animating Facial Expressions Using Blend Shapes 307

Creating Blend Shape Targets 310

Creating Blend Shapes 316

Painting Blend Shape Weights  318

Adding Targets  321

Creating a Custom Mouth Control  322

Connecting the Controls to the Blend Shape  325

Animating Blend Shapes Sequentially 329

Creating the Base Mesh 329

Creating the Blend Shape Targets  332

Creating the Blend Shape Sequence 333

Animating with Lattices 335

Creating a Lattice 335

Using the Lattice Membership Tool 337

Adding an Object to an Existing Lattice 338

Animating Lattices 339

Animating Object Components with Clusters  342

Adding Cluster Objects  342

Painting Cluster Weights 343

Applying Cluster Components 345

Constraining Clusters  347

Animating a Scene Using Nonlinear Deformers  348

Creating a Wave Deformer  349

Squashing and Stretching Objects 351

Twisting Objects  352

Creating a Jiggle Effect  354

Applying Jiggle Deformers  354

Painting Jiggle Weights  355

Optimizing Animations with the Geometry Cache 357

Creating a Geometry Cache  357

Editing the Cache Playback 359

The Bottom Line 360

Chapter 7 • Rigging and Muscle Systems  363

Understanding Rigging  363

Creating and Organizing Joint Hierarchies 365

Orienting Joints 372

Naming Joints  374

Mirroring Joints  377

Rigging the Giraffe  378

IK Legs  378

FK Blending 381

Rotate Plane Solver 383

Creating Custom Attributes  387

Spline IK 390

Human Inverse Kinematics  397

Skeleton Generator  397

Character Controls  398

Interoperability 401

Skinning Geometry 402

Interactive/Smooth Binding  403

Weighting the Giraffe 403

Painting Skin Weights  410

Editing Skin Weights in the Component Editor  415

Copying Skin Weights  415

Mirroring Skin Weights 417

The Maya Muscle System  417

Understanding the Maya Muscle System 417

Using Capsules  418

Creating a Muscle Using the Muscle Builder 420

Editing Muscle Parameters 425

Converting the Smooth Skin to a Muscle System  427

Sliding Weights 429

The Bottom Line 430

Chapter 8 • Paint Effects 431

Using the Paint Effects Canvas  431

The Paint Effects Window 432

Painting in Scene Mode 436

Painting on 3D Objects  437

Understanding Strokes  439

The Anatomy of a Paint Effects Stroke  439

Brush Sharing  442

Understanding Brush Curve Nodes  444

Designing Brushes 445

Starting from Scratch 446

Tubes 449

Growing Flowers 450

Adding Leaves 456

Create Complexity by Adding Strokes to a Curve  459

Shaping Strokes with Behavior Controls  462

Applying Forces  462

Displacement, Spiral, and Bend  463

Animating Strokes 465

Animating Attribute Values  467

Adding Turbulence 467

Animating Growth 469

Modifiers  470

Surface Collisions 470

Rendering Paint Effects 472

Illumination 472

Shadow Effects  473

Shading Strokes and Tubes 475

Texturing Strokes  478

Converting Strokes to Geometry  481

The Bottom Line 483

Chapter 9 • Lighting with mental ray 485

Shadow-Casting Lights 485

Shadow Preview 486

Depth Map Shadows  488

mental ray Shadow Map Overrides 494

Raytrace Shadows 497

Indirect Lighting: Global Illumination 498

Global Illumination  499

Tuning Global Illumination  503

Working with Photon Maps  506

Color Bleeding 508

Importons 509

Caustics 509

Caustic Light Setup  513

Indirect Illumination: Final Gathering 514

Light-Emitting Objects 515

Final Gathering Maps 520

Using Lights with Final Gathering  525

Image-Based Lighting 526

Enabling IBL  527

IBL and Final Gathering  527

Physical Sun and Sky 529

Enabling Physical Sun and Sky  529

Editing the Sky Settings 531

mental ray Area Lights  532

Light Shaders  536

Physical Light Shader 536

Tone Mapping  540

Photometric Lights and Profiles 541

The Bottom Line 542

Chapter 10 • mental ray Shading Techniques  545

Shading Concepts 545

Diffusion  548

Reflection  548

Refraction 549

The Fresnel Effect  550

Anisotropy 551

Creating Blurred Reflections and Refractions Using Standard Maya Shaders  551

Reflection Blur 551

Refraction Blur 554

Basic mental ray Shaders 555

DGS Shaders  556

Dielectric Material  561

mental ray Base Shaders  564

Car Paint Materials  571

Diffuse Parameters 575

Specular Parameters 575

Flake Parameters 575

Reflection Parameters 576

The mia Material  577

Using the mia Material Presets 578

Add Bumps to the Rubber Shader  579

Create Beveled Edges Using mia_roundcorners 581

Creating Thick and Thin Glass and Plastic  582

Other mia Material Attributes  584

Controlling Exposure with Tone Mapping  587

Rendering Contours 589

The Bottom Line 592

Chapter 11 • Texture Mapping 595

UV Texture Layout 595

What Are UV Texture Coordinates?  596

Mapping the Giraffe Leg 600

Unfolding UVs 607

Mapping the Giraffe Head  610

Mirroring UVs 613

More UV Tools 616

Arranging UV Shells  618

Additional UV Mapping Considerations  621

Transferring UVs 621

Multiple UV Sets 622

Optimizing Textures  622

Bump and Normal Mapping  623

Bump Maps  624

Normal Maps 624

Creating Normal Maps  625

Applying Normal Maps 631

Displacement Mapping 633

Subsurface Scattering  638

Fast, Simple Skin-Shader Setup  638

Subsurface Scattering Layers  643

Subsurface Specularity  645

Viewport 20  647

The Bottom Line 649

Chapter 12 • Rendering for Compositing 651

Render Layers 651

Creating Render Layers 652

Render Layer Overrides 655

Creating Overrides for Rendering Cameras 659

Using Different Shaders on Render Layers 661

Material Overrides  663

Render Layer Blend Modes 663

Render Passes 669

Upgrading Materials for Rendering Passes  671

Rendering Multiple Passes from a Single Render Layer  673

Creating an Ambient Occlusion Render Pass 678

Render Pass Contribution Maps  685

Lights and Contribution Maps 688

Render Pass Sets  691

Setting Up a Render with mental ray  692

File Tokens 693

Specifying Frame Range  697

Renderable Cameras 697

File Formats and the Frame Buffer 698

Starting a Batch Render 699

Command-Line Rendering 700

Creating a Batch Script 704

mental ray Quality Settings  706

Tessellation and Approximation Nodes  706

Unified Sampling  708

Filtering  709

The Bottom Line 709

Chapter 13 • Introducing nParticles 711

Creating nParticles 711

Drawing nParticles Using the nParticle Tool 712

Spawning nParticles from an Emitter 715

mitting nParticles from a Surface  718

Filling an Object with nParticles  720

Making nParticles Collide with nRigids  725

Passive Collision Objects 725

Collide Strength and Collision Ramps  731

Using nParticles to Simulate Liquids  734

Creating Liquid Behavior  734

Converting nParticles to Polygons 738

Shading the nParticle Mesh 740

Emit nParticles Using a Texture 742

Surface Emission 742

Using Wind 748

Shading nParticles and Using Hardware Rendering to Create Flame Effects  751

Shading nParticles to Simulate Flames 752

Creating an nCache  754

Using the Hardware Render Buffer 756

nParticles and Fields  758

Using Multiple Emitters 759

Volume Axis Curve 762

Working with Force Fields  768

Painting Field Maps  770

Using Dynamic Fields  773

Rendering Particles with mental ray 777

The Bottom Line 781

Chapter 14 • Dynamic Effects 783

Creating nCloth Objects  783

Making a Polygon Mesh Dynamic 784

Applying nCloth Presets  786

Making Surfaces Sticky  789

Creating nConstraints  791

Making nCloth Objects Expand Using Pressure 795

Additional Techniques 797

Creating an nCache  798

Creating nCloth and nParticle Interactions 800

Creating an nParticle Goal  800

Controlling Collision Events 803

Bursting an Object Open Using Tearable nConstraints  805

Rigid Body Dynamics 807

Creating an Exploding Tower 807

Tuning the Rigid Body Simulation  809

Baking the Simulation  811

Crumbling Tower  813

Soft Body Dynamics  814

Creating Flying Debris Using nParticle Instancing 815

Adding nParticles to the Scene 816

Sending the Debris Flying Using a Field  819

Creating a More Convincing Explosion by Adjusting nParticle Mass 821

Instancing Geometry 822

Animating Instances Using nParticle Expressions 824

Randomizing Instance Index  824

Connecting Instance Size to nParticle Mass 828

Controlling the Rotation of nParticles 833

The Bottom Line 834

Chapter 15 • Fur, Hair, and Clothing  835

Adding Fur to Characters 835

Preparing Polygons for Maya Fur  835

Creating a Fur Description  837

Editing the Fur Description: Baldness 838

Editing the Fur Description: Direction 844

Editing the Fur Description: Length  847

Test-Render Fur 849

Applying a Color Map  851

Applying Map Offsets and Multipliers 852

Enhancing the Realism of Fur  854

Rendering Fur Using mental ray 855

Animating Using Dynamic Curves  857

Using Dynamic Curves with IK Splines 857

Creating an IK Spline Handle from the Dynamic Curve 861

Using Forces 863

Adding Hair to a Character  863

Applying Hair to a Surface  864

Determining Hair Shape 867

Styling Hair 871

Start and Rest Positions 871

Painting Follicle Attributes 873

Modifying Curves  875

Curling, Noise, Sub Clumping, and Braids  876

Rendering Hair 876

Creating Clothing for Characters  878

Modeling Clothes for nCloth  878

Using Constraints 880

Connecting Buttons to the Shirt 886

Applying Forces  888

Painting nCloth Properties 888

The Bottom Line 892

Chapter 16 • Maya Fluids  895

Using Fluid Containers 895

Using 2D Containers  896

Adding an Emitter  897

Using Fields with Fluids  901

Using 3D Containers  904

Fluid Interactions 905

Emitting Fluids from a Surface 905

Making Flames  908

Igniting the Fuel  911

Filling Objects 912

Rendering Fluid Containers 917

Create Fluids and nParticle Interactions  919

Emitting Fluids from nParticles 920

Creating Flaming Trails 924

Creating Water Effects 926

Filling a Container  926

Adding Surface Detail  928

Rendering Liquids  929

Creating an Ocean  931

The Bottom Line 934

Appendix A • The Bottom Line  937

Appendix B • Autodesk Maya 2014 Certification 959

Index 963