Introduction xix Chapter 1 * Working in Autodesk Maya 1 Color Management 1 Creating and Editing Nodes 3 Using the Hypergraph 3 Connecting Nodes with the Node Editor 8 Creating Node Hierarchies in the Outliner 13 Displaying Options in the Outliner 17 The Channel Box 20 The Attribute Editor 24 Working with Shader Nodes in the Hypershade 27 Creating Maya Projects 35 Creating a New Project 36 Editing and Changing Projects 37 The Bottom Line 38 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 52 Auto Keyframe 54 Moving and Scaling Keyframes on the Timeline 55 Copy, Paste, and Cut Keyframes 57 The Graph Editor 59 Animation Curves 60 Editing Animation Curves 65 Weighted Tangents 69 Additional Editing Tools 70 Breakdowns and In-Betweens 74 Pre- and Post-Infinity 76 Playblast and FCheck 79 Driven Keys 81 Creating a Driven Key 81 Looping Driven Keys 84 Copying and Pasting Driven Keys 85 Motion-Path Animation 88 Motion Trails 90 Animating Constraints 93 Animation Layers 97 Creating an Animation Layer 97 Layer Mode 99 Other Options in the Layer Editor 102 Layer Hierarchy 103 Merging Layers 106 Grease Pencil 107 The Bottom Line 109 Chapter 3 * Hard-Surface Modeling 111 Understanding Polygon Geometry 111 Polygon Vertices 111 Polygon Edges 112 Polygon Faces 113 Working with Smooth Polygons 114 Understanding NURBS 115 Understanding Curves 116 Understanding NURBS Surfaces 118 Surface Seams 121 NURBS Display Controls 121 Using Subdivision Surfaces 122 Employing Image Planes 122 Modeling NURBS Surfaces 126 Lofting Surfaces 134 Attaching Surfaces 136 Converting NURBS Surfaces to Polygons 139 Modeling with Polygons 140 Using Booleans 141 Cleaning Topology 146 Creating Your Own Polygons 148 Multi-Cut Tool 151 Combining and Merging Geometry 153 Bridge Polygon 155 Mirror Cut 159 The Bottom Line 160 Chapter 4 * Organic Modeling 163 Implement Box Modeling 163 Shaping Using Smooth Mesh Polygon Geometry 164 Multi-Cut with Edge Flow 175 Slide Edge Tool 177 Offset Edge Loops 178 Employ Build-Out Modeling 179 Extrude along a Curve 181 Sculpt Polygons 185 Soft Select Tool 185 Sculpting Tools 187 Use Retopology Tools 189 Importing and Exporting 189 Alembic Cache Files 190 Slide on Surface 190 Quad Draw 193 Reduce 198 The Bottom Line 199 Chapter 5 * Rigging and Muscle Systems 201 Understanding Rigging 201 Creating and Organizing Joint Hierarchies 203 Orienting Joints 211 Naming Joints 212 Mirroring Joints 215 Rigging the Giraffe 216 IK Legs 216 FK Blending 219 Rotate-Plane Solver 221 Creating Custom Attributes 225 Spline IK 230 Human Inverse Kinematics 237 Skeleton Generator 237 Character Controls 239 Interoperability 241 Skinning Geometry 242 Interactive/Smooth Binding 243 Weighting the Giraffe 243 Geodesic Voxel Binding 250 Painting Skin Weights 253 Editing Skin Weights in the Component Editor 258 Copying Skin Weights 259 Mirroring Skin Weights 260 The Maya Muscle System 260 Understanding the Maya Muscle System 260 Using Capsules 261 Creating a Muscle Using the Muscle Builder 262 Editing Muscle Parameters 268 Converting the Smooth Skin to a Muscle System 270 Sliding Weights 272 The Bottom Line 273 Chapter 6 * Animation Techniques 275 Working with Deformers 275 ShrinkWrapping Geometry 275 Using Textures to Deform Objects 278 Delta Mush 281 Animating Facial Expressions Using Blend Shapes 283 Creating Blend Shape Targets 286 Creating Blend Shapes 292 Painting Blend Shape Weights 294 Adding Targets 297 Animating a Scene Using Nonlinear Deformers 298 Creating a Wave Deformer 299 Squashing and Stretching Objects 300 Twisting Objects 302 Creating a Jiggle Effect 304 Applying Jiggle Deformers 304 Painting Jiggle Weights 305 Optimizing Animations with the Geometry Cache 307 Creating a Geometry Cache 307 Editing the Cache Playback 308 Applying Motion Capture 309 The Bottom Line 311 Chapter 7 * Lighting with mental ray 313 Shadow-Casting Lights 313 Shadow Preview 314 Depth Map Shadows 316 mental ray Shadow Map Overrides 320 Raytrace Shadows 322 Indirect Lighting: Global Illumination 323 Color Bleeding 326 Indirect Illumination: Final Gathering 326 Light-Emitting Objects 327 Using Lights with Final Gathering 331 Image-Based Lighting 332 Enabling IBL 332 IBL and Final Gathering 333 Physical Sun and Sky 335 Enabling Physical Sun and Sky 335 Editing the Sky Settings 337 mental ray Area Lights 338 Light Shaders 341 Physical Light Shader 341 Tone Mapping 343 Photometric Lights and Profiles 344 The Bottom Line 345 Chapter 8 * mental ray Shading Techniques 347 Shading Concepts 347 Diffusion 350 Reflection 351 Refraction 351 The Fresnel Effect 353 Anisotropy 353 Layering Shaders 354 Creating Reflections and Refractions 355 Creating Metals and Plastics 362 Adding Shaders to Individual Polygons 364 Building a Layered Car Paint Shader 365 Base Parameters 367 Flake Parameters 369 Specular Reflection Layer 370 Glossy Reflection Parameters 370 The Bottom Line 371 Chapter 9 * Texture Mapping 373 UV Texture Layout 373 What Are UV Texture Coordinates? 374 Mapping the Giraffe Leg 376 Unfolding UVs 381 Mapping the Giraffe Head 381 Mirroring UVs 384 More UV Tools 387 Arranging UV Shells 388 Additional UV Mapping Considerations 391 Transferring UVs 392 Multiple UV Sets 392 Optimizing Textures 392 Bump and Normal Mapping 393 Bump Maps 393 Normal Maps 394 Creating Normal Maps 396 Applying Normal Maps 400 Displacement Mapping 402 Subsurface Scattering 407 Fast, Simple Skin-Shader Setup 407 Subsurface Specularity 411 ShaderFX 415 The Bottom Line 417 Chapter 10 * Paint Effects 419 Using the Paint Effects Canvas 419 The Paint Effects Window 420 Painting in Scene Mode 424 Painting on 3D Objects 425 Understanding Strokes 427 The Anatomy of a Paint Effects Stroke 427 Brush Sharing 430 Understanding Brush Curve Nodes 431 Designing Brushes 433 Starting from Scratch 433 Tubes 436 Growing Flowers 438 Adding Leaves 444 Create Complexity by Adding Strokes to a Curve 447 Shaping Strokes with Behavior Controls 450 Applying Forces 450 Displacement, Spiral, and Bend 451 Animating Strokes 453 Animating Attribute Values 455 Adding Turbulence 456 Animating Growth 457 Modifiers 458 Surface Collisions 459 Rendering Paint Effects 460 Illumination 461 Shadow Effects 461 Shading Strokes and Tubes 463 Texturing Strokes 466 Converting Strokes to Geometry 469 The Bottom Line 471 Chapter 11 * Rendering for Compositing 473 Render Layers 473 Creating Render Layers 474 Render Layer Overrides 477 Creating Overrides for Rendering Cameras 479 Material Overrides 481 Render Layer Blend Modes 481 Render Passes 486 Rendering Multiple Passes from a Single Render Layer 488 Creating an Ambient Occlusion Render Pass 492 Setting Up a Render with mental ray 494 File Tokens 494 Specifying Frame Range 497 Starting a Batch Render 498 Command-Line Rendering 499 mental ray Quality Settings 502 Tessellation and Approximation Nodes 502 Sampling 504 Filtering 504 The Bottom Line 504 Chapter 12 * Introducing nParticles 507 Creating nParticles 507 Drawing nParticles Using the nParticle Tool 508 Spawning nParticles from an Emitter 512 Emitting nParticles from a Surface 515 Filling an Object with nParticles 518 Making nParticles Collide with nRigids 523 Passive Collision Objects 523 Collide Strength and Collision Ramps 528 Using nParticles to Simulate Liquids 531 Creating Liquid Behavior 531 Converting nParticles to Polygons 536 Shading the nParticle Mesh 537 Emitting nParticles Using a Texture 539 Surface Emission 539 Using Wind 545 Shading nParticles and Using Hardware Rendering to Create Flame Effec.