Introducing Maya 8: 3D for Beginners

EBook Description: Starting with the basics, the book builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it fun and easy to learn Maya's core features while introducing new Maya 8 elements such as improved polygon tools and enhanced rendering with mental ray. Clear-cut, engaging lessons let you experiment using the wealth of files provided on the CD-ROM. You'll also find an abundance of instructional and inspirational Maya creations in the full-color insert.

If you?re new to Maya, the industry?leading 3D animation and effects software, Introducing Maya includes step?by?step tutorials and easy?to?follow explanations to teach you the basics and nuances of this complex software. Whether you?re a student or a hobbyist, you can learn all about the Maya interface and the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, animating and visual effects with realistic examples. If you?re new to 3D animation or transitioning from another 3D application, this book will provide you with the tools you need to become proficient at Maya.

Thread: Focal Easy Guide to Maya 5: For new Users and Professionals

Focal Easy Guide to Maya 5: For new Users and Professionals by Jason Patnode

Advanced Compositing Workflows with Maya and Toxik

In this series of lessons, we will learn the process of rendering your Maya scene into multiple passes, and using some advanced techniques for compositing these passes using Toxik.

We will dedicate the first portion of this course to using Render Passes in Maya to separate various elements of our scene at render time. We�ll use mental ray�s render passes, contribution maps, custom framebuffers, and render layers to create the necessary render passes for our scene. In the second portion of this course we will begin with some quick compositing similar to our Compositing 3D Renders in Toxik course, but we will quickly get into more advanced topics such as Depth-of-Field, working with HDR, Depth-based compositing and spot paint fixing.

Lesson Outline (26 lessons)

The End Of Time The Maya Mystery Of 2012

December 21, 2012. The Internet, bookshelves, and movie theaters are full of prophecies, theories, and predictions that this date marks the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. Whether the end will result from the magnentic realignment of the north and south poles, bringing floods, earthquakes, death, and destruction; or from the return of alien caretakers to enlighten or enslave us; or from a global awakening, a sudden evolution of Homo sapiens into non-corporeal beings theories of great, impending changes abound.In The End of Time, award-winning astronomer and Maya researcher Anthony Aveni explores these theories, explains their origins, and measures them objectively against evidence unearthed by Maya archaeologists, iconographers, and epigraphers. He probes the latest information astronomers and earth scientists have gathered on the likelihood of Armageddon and the oft-proposed link between the Maya Long Count cycle and the precession of the equinoxes. He then expands on these prophecies to include the broader context of how other cultures, ancient and modern, thought about the end of things and speculates on why cataclysmic events in human history have such a strong appeal within American pop culture.

Game Art Complete: All-in-One: Learn Maya, 3ds Max, ZBrush, and Photoshop Winning Techniques (All in One) By Andrew Gahan

A compilation of key chapters from the top Focal game art books available today - in the areas of Max, Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush. The chapters provide the CG Artist with an excellent sampling of essential techniques that every 3D artist needs to create stunning game art.

Game artists will be able to master the modeling, rendering, rigging, and texturing techniques they need - with advice from Focal's best and brightest authors. Artists can learn hundreds of tips, tricks and shortcuts in Max, Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush - all within the covers of one complete, inspiring reference.
The four cornerstone software packages for game art development all explained in one book - Photoshop, Maya, Max and Zbrush.
Easy to follow steps with theory, explanations, and exercises.
"The best of" Focal Press for game art - top selling authors share their lessons, tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Star Gods Of The Maya Astronomy

Observations of the sun, moon, planets, and stars played a central role in ancient Maya lifeways, as they do today among contemporary Maya who maintain the traditional ways. This pathfinding book reconstructs ancient Maya astronomy and cosmology through the astronomical information encoded in Precolumbian Maya art and confirmed by the current practices of living Maya peoples.Susan Milbrath opens the book with a discussion of modern Maya beliefs about astronomy, along with essential information on naked-eye observation. She devotes subsequent chapters to Precolumbian astronomical imagery, which she traces back through time, starting from the Colonial and Postclassic eras. She delves into many aspects of the Maya astronomical images, including the major astronomical gods and their associated glyphs, astronomical almanacs in the Maya codices [painted books], and changes in the imagery of the heavens over time. This investigation yields new data and a new synthesis of information about the specific astronomical events and cycles recorded in Maya art and architecture. Indeed, it constitutes the first major study of the relationship between art and astronomy in ancient Maya culture.

MEL Scripting for Maya Animators

Trying to learn Maya programming from the documentation can be daunting whether or not you are a programmer. The first edition of MEL Scripting for Maya Animators earned the reputation as the best introductory book on MEL, Mayas scripting language. Now fully revised and updated, the second edition also includes new features, such as a discussion of global procedures, new chapters on fixing programming bottlenecks, advanced user interface techniques, and optimizing character rigs. New chapters on utility nodes and Maya's Web Panel feature provide new ideas on how to use MEL in applications.

This new edition has kept the popular style of the first edition that offered very clear explanations of programming concepts to those without programming experience. A generous collection of code examples and Maya scene files is included on the companion Web site. This is a book for animators, artists, game developers, visual effects developers, and technical directors who want to learn the fundamentals of Maya, how to automate tasks, personalize user interfaces, build custom tools, and solve problems with MEL.

* Fully updated with several new chapters.
* Profusely illustrated and includes a companion Web site with numerous code examples and scene files.
* The authors bring their extensive experience in professional production studios to provide expert guidance.

Sybex Maya Secrets of the Pros Second Edition

Featuring completely original material from a new team of Maya know-it-alls, this second edition of an award-winning book is sure to inform and inspire even the most seasoned Maya user. In this distinctive Maya Press title, a cadre of professionals led by two acclaimed Maya pros, reveal the precious secrets they?ve learned using Maya on high-profile CG projects such as The Matrix, Shrek 2, and X-Men.

In nine unique and compelling chapters, you?ll get detailed and sophisticated instruction on how to:

* Enhance fluidity and realism by generating complex motion with Maya Cloth
* Apply non-photorealistic rendering styles that mimic the look of comic books and impressionist paintings
* Emulate real-world camera motion, from dolly-and-pan movement to varying levels of camera shake
* Produce natural lighting effects using global illumination and image based lighting
* Ensure smooth and accurate transfer of character data from modeling to rigging to animation to lighting
* Control IK chains, deformers, and surfaces with Maya Hair's dynamic curves
* Use dynamics effectively to create flexible objects and add secondary effects to enhance your animation
* Use Maya?s built-in noise function to produce powerful effects similar to those used in ?The Matrix? trilogy
* Create a human face from a conceptual sketch using subdivision surfaces.

Password: misterdanger

Facial Animation in Maya

In this collection of lessons we will learn tips an techniques for creating believable facial animations. This course will cover the process of animating a face in Maya. We will build the animation step by step, covering time-saving and proficient techniques like smart blocking, using a checklist, how to work with reference, checking for arcs. We will even cover what to do when we encounter issues where an expression that was not anticipated calls for the control rig to be revised. By the end of this course, you we will be equipped with the knowledge you need to build your own facial animations that are convincing and entertaining.

Facial Animation in Maya

n this collection of lessons we will learn tips an techniques for creating believable facial animations. This course will cover the process of animating a face in Maya. We will build the animation step by step, covering time-saving and proficient techniques like smart blocking, using a checklist, how to work with reference, checking for arcs. We will even cover what to do when we encounter issues where an expression that was not anticipated calls for the control rig to be revised. By the end of this course, you we will be equipped with the knowledge you need to build your own facial animations that are convincing and entertaining

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