Introduction xxiii Chapter 1 ? Working in Autodesk Maya 1 Creating and Editing Nodes 1 Using the Hypergraph 3 Connecting Nodes with the Node Editor 7 Creating Node Hierarchies in the Outliner 11 Displaying Options in the Outliner 15 The Channel Box 18 The Attribute Editor 22 Working with Shader Nodes in the Hypershade 25 Creating Maya Projects 34 Creating a New Project 34 Editing and Changing Projects 36 The Bottom Line 37 Chapter 2 ? Introduction to Animation 39 Using Joints and Constraints 39 Joint Basics 39 Point Constraints 41 Aim Constraints 41 Inverse Kinematics 44 IK Handle Tool 45 Creating a Master Control 48 Keyframe Animation 51 Creating Keyframes 51 Auto Keyframe 53 Moving and Scaling Keyframes on the Timeline 54 Copy, Paste, and Cut Keyframes 56 The Graph Editor 58 Animation Curves 59 Editing Animation Curves 64 Weighted Tangents 68 Additional Editing Tools 69 Breakdowns and In-Betweens 72 Pre- and Post-Infinity 75 Playblast and FCheck 78 Driven Keys 80 Creating a Driven Key 80 Looping Driven Keys 82 Copying and Pasting Driven Keys 83 Motion-Path Animation 86 Motion Trails 88 Animating Constraints 90 Animation Layers 94 Creating an Animation Layer 94 Layer Mode 96 Other Options in the Layer Editor 98 Layer Hierarchy 99 Merging Layers 102 Grease Pencil 103 The Bottom Line 105 Chapter 3 ? Hard-Surface Modeling 107 Understanding Polygon Geometry 107 Polygon Vertices 108 Polygon Edges 108 Polygon Faces 109 Working with Smooth Polygons 111 Understanding NURBS 112 Understanding Curves 113 Understanding NURBS Surfaces 115 Surface Seams 118 NURBS Display Controls 118 Using Subdivision Surfaces 119 Employing Image Planes 119 Modeling NURBS Surfaces 123 Lofting Surfaces 131 Attaching Surfaces 134 Converting NURBS Surfaces to Polygons 137 Modeling with Polygons 139 Using Booleans 139 Cleaning Topology 144 Creating Your Own Polygons 147 Multi-Cut Tool 151 Combining and Merging Geometry 153 Bridge Polygon 155 Mirror Cut 159 The Bottom Line 161 Chapter 4 ? Organic Modeling 163 Implement Box Modeling 163 Shaping Using Smooth Mesh Polygon Geometry 164 Connect Components 177 Slide Edge Tool 179 Offset Edge Loops 181 Employ Build-out Modeling 182 Extrude Along a Curve 184 Sculpting Polygons 188 Soft Select Tool 188 Sculpting Polygons Using Artisan 190 Use Retopology Tools 194 Importing and Exporting 194 Alembic Cache Files 195 Slide on Surface 195 Quad Draw 198 Reduce 205 The Bottom Line 206 Chapter 5 ? Rigging and Muscle Systems 207 Understanding Rigging 207 Creating and Organizing Joint Hierarchies 209 Orienting Joints 217 Naming Joints 220 Mirroring Joints 222 Rigging the Giraffe 223 IK Legs 224 FK Blending 226 Rotate Plane Solver 229 Creating Custom Attributes 232 Spline IK 236 Human Inverse Kinematics 242 Skeleton Generator 243 Character Controls 244 Interoperability 247 Skinning Geometry 247 Interactive/Smooth Binding 248 Weighting the Giraffe 248 Geodesic Voxel Binding 256 Painting Skin Weights 257 Editing Skin Weights in the Component Editor 262 Copying Skin Weights 262 Mirroring Skin Weights 263 The Maya Muscle System 263 Understanding the Maya Muscle System 264 Using Capsules 264 Creating a Muscle Using the Muscle Builder 266 Editing Muscle Parameters 270 Converting the Smooth Skin to a Muscle System 274 Sliding Weights 275 The Bottom Line 277 Chapter 6 ? Animation Techniques 279 Working with Deformers 279 ShrinkWrapping Geometry 279 Using Textures to Deform Objects 282 Animating Facial Expressions Using Blend Shapes 286 Creating Blend Shape Targets 290 Creating Blend Shapes 296 Painting Blend Shape Weights 296 Adding Targets 300 Animating a Scene Using Nonlinear Deformers 302 Creating a Wave Deformer 302 Squashing and Stretching Objects 304 Twisting Objects 305 Creating a Jiggle Effect 307 Applying Jiggle Deformers 307 Painting Jiggle Weights 308 Optimizing Animations with the Geometry Cache 310 Creating a Geometry Cache 310 Editing the Cache Playback 311 Applying Motion Capture 312 The Bottom Line 315 Chapter 7 ? Lighting with mental ray 317 Shadow-Casting Lights 317 Shadow Preview 318 Depth Map Shadows 320 mental ray Shadow Map Overrides 324 Raytrace Shadows 326 Indirect Lighting: Global Illumination 327 Tuning Global Illumination 332 Working with Photon Maps 334 Color Bleeding 336 Importons 336 Caustics 337 Caustic Light Setup 340 Indirect Illumination: Final Gathering 342 Light-Emitting Objects 342 Final Gathering Maps 347 Using Lights with Final Gathering 352 Image-Based Lighting 353 Enabling IBL 353 IBL and Final Gathering 354 Physical Sun and Sky 356 Enabling Physical Sun and Sky 356 Editing the Sky Settings 358 mental ray Area Lights 360 Light Shaders 363 Physical Light Shader 363 Tone Mapping 366 Photometric Lights and Profiles 367 The Bottom Line 367 Chapter 8 ? mental ray Shading Techniques 369 Shading Concepts 369 Diffusion 372 Reflection 372 Refraction 373 The Fresnel Effect 374 Anisotropy 375 Creating Blurred Reflections and Refractions Using Standard Maya Shaders 375 Reflection Blur 375 Refraction Blur 376 mental ray Shaders 380 Using the mia Material Presets 380 Adding Shaders to Individual Polygons 383 Creating Thick and Thin Glass 384 Other mia Material Attributes 386 Layering Shaders 389 Building a Layered Car Paint Shader 390 Diffuse Parameters 392 Flake Parameters 393 Specular Reflection Layer 394 Glossy Reflection Parameters 395 Rendering Contours 396 The Bottom Line 398 Chapter 9 ? Texture Mapping 399 UV Texture Layout 399 What Are UV Texture Coordinates? 400 Mapping the Giraffe Leg 404 Unfolding UVs 406 Mapping the Giraffe Head 408 Mirroring UVs 411 More UV Tools 414 Arranging UV Shells 416 Additional UV Mapping Considerations 418 Transferring UVs 419 Multiple UV Sets 419 Optimizing Textures 420 Bump and Normal Mapping 421 Bump Maps 421 Normal Maps 422 Creating Normal Maps 423 Applying Normal Maps 428 Displacement Mapping 430 Subsurface Scattering 435 Fast, Simple Skin-Shader Setup 435 Subsurface Specularity 439 Viewport 20 443 The Bottom Line 445 Chapter 10 ? Paint Effects 447 Using the Paint Effects Canvas 447 The Paint Effects Window 448 Painting in Scene Mode 451 Painting on 3D Objects 453 Understanding Strokes 454 The Anatomy of a Paint Effects Stroke 455 Brush Sharing 458 Understanding Brush Curve Nodes 459 Designing Brushes 460 Starting from Scratch 461 Tubes 464 Growing Flowers 466 Adding Leaves 471 Create Complexity by Adding Strokes to a Curve 475 Shaping Strokes with Behavior Controls 478 Applying Forces 478 Displacement, Spiral, and Bend 479 Animating Strokes 481 Animating Attribute Values 483 Adding Turbulence 483 Animating Growth 485 Modifiers 486 Surface Collisions 486 Rendering Paint Effects 488 Illumination 488 Shadow Effects 489 Shading Strokes and Tubes 491 Texturing Strokes 493 Converting Strokes to Geometry 497 The Bottom Line 499 Chapter 11 ? Rendering for Compositing 501 Render Layers 501 Creating Render Layers 502 Render Layer Overrides 505 Creating Overrides for Rendering Cameras 509 Material Overrides 510 Render Layer Blend Modes 510 Render Passes 516 Upgrading Materials for Rendering Passes 518 Rendering Multiple Passes from a Single Render Layer 519 Creating an Ambient Occlusion Render Pass 523 Setting Up a Render with mental ray 530 File Tokens 532 Specifying Frame Range 535 Renderable Cameras 536 File Formats and the Frame Buffer 536 Starting a Batch Render 537 Command-Line Rendering 538 mental ray Quality Settings 541 Tessellation and Approximation Nodes 541 Unified Sampling 543 Filtering 543 <.