Book description
Create positively dazzling effects with the unique insights and practical advice in this innovative guide from a working professional Maya artist. Need to create plasmatic energy by lunch? Animate a field of sprouting daisies before tomorrow's meeting? Fashion a force field by Friday? With Maya's flexible toolset and the unique tutorials in this book, you'll learn how to solve real-world problems, improvise, and finish your professional assignments on time and with flair.
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Dear Reader
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Introduction
- 1. Texture Effects
- 2. Particle Effects
-
3. Rigging for Effects
- 3.1. The Vibrating Rig: Making a Tentacle Shake
- 3.2. Inverse Kinematic Splines: Making a Tentacle Climb
-
3.3. Joints and Constraints: The Telescopic Car Suspension Rig
- 3.3.1. Creating the Telescoping Leg
- 3.3.2. Creating the Telescopic Rig
- 3.3.3. Setting Limits for the Scale X Attribute
- 3.3.4. Creating an IK Handle for the Leg Joints
- 3.3.5. Creating an Automated Scaling Control
- 3.3.6. Duplicating the Leg Rig
- 3.3.7. Placing the Legs
- 3.3.8. Constraining the Wheels
- 3.3.9. Creating Front and Rear Controls
- 3.3.10. Making the Car Move
- 3.4. The Inverse Kinematic Spline Tool and Lattices
-
4. Creative Blend Shape Use
-
4.1. Blend Shapes and Lattices
- 4.1.1. Revolving a Surface
- 4.1.2. Creating a Blend Shape for the Profile Curve
- 4.1.3. Setting Up a Control View Camera
- 4.1.4. Setting Up Blend Shape Controls
- 4.1.5. Making the Vase Spin
- 4.1.6. Animating the Sculpting of the Vase
- 4.1.7. Creating a Blend Shape Control for the Lattice
- 4.1.8. Deforming the Blend Shape Lattice with Joints
- 4.2. Blend Shape In-Betweens
- 4.3. Interactive Blend Shape Rigs
- 4.4. Layering Blend Shapes
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4.1. Blend Shapes and Lattices
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5. Paint Effects
-
5.1. Paint Effects and Toon Lines: The Mine Detector Display
- 5.1.1. Creating the Probe and Mine Display
- 5.1.2. Creating the Proximity Warning Display
- 5.1.3. Adding Paint Effects Strokes to the Proximity Display
- 5.1.4. Adding Interactive Control to the Proximity Display
- 5.1.5. Using the Information from the Distance Between Node
- 5.1.6. Duplicating the Mines
- 5.1.7. Animating the Probe
- 5.1.8. Illuminating the Path
- 5.1.9. Animating the Path
- 5.1.10. Finishing Touches
- 5.2. Hallucinations in 3D: Using the Smear Stroke
-
5.3. Paint Effects Strokes and Soft Body Dynamics
- 5.3.1. Animating the Movement of the Bacterium
- 5.3.2. Creating the Soft Body Object
- 5.3.3. Creating Bacterial Pili with Paint Effects
- 5.3.4. Modifying the Weeds Stroke
- 5.3.5. Editing Surface Offset
- 5.3.6. Animating the Bacterial Pili
- 5.3.7. Converting Paint Effects to NURBS
- 5.3.8. Playblast the Animation
-
5.4. Taming Paint Effects Brush Strokes: The Test Tube Nerve
- 5.4.1. Creating the Nerve Using Paint Effects
- 5.4.2. Adjusting the Look of the Nerve Stroke
- 5.4.3. Adjusting Branches and Twigs
- 5.4.4. Adjusting Forces
- 5.4.5. Creating a Control Curve
- 5.4.6. Animating the Control Curve
- 5.4.7. Converting the Control Curve to a Soft Body Object
- 5.4.8. Editing the Goal Weights of the Soft Body Curve
- 5.4.9. Controlling the Growth for the Stroke
- 5.4.10. Key Framing Stroke Growth
- 5.4.11. Rendering the Nerve
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5.1. Paint Effects and Toon Lines: The Mine Detector Display
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6. Soft Body Springs
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6.1. Soft Body Springs and Geometry: Simulating Magic
- 6.1.1. Creating the Magical Field Geometry
- 6.1.2. Converting the Cube into a Soft Body Object
- 6.1.3. Adding Fields to the Soft Body Object
- 6.1.4. Distorting the Magic Field with a Secondary Particle System
- 6.1.5. Adding a Radial Field to the Distorter Particles
- 6.1.6. Adding Soft Body Springs to the Particles
- 6.1.7. Setting Initial State
- 6.1.8. Rendering the Magical Field
- 6.1.9. Creating a Glowing Edge on the Magical Force Field
-
6.2. Soft Body Springs and Particles
- 6.2.1. Creating the Emitters
- 6.2.2. Attaching Springs to the Particles
- 6.2.3. Adjusting the Simulation
- 6.2.4. Adding a Turbulence Field
- 6.2.5. Using the Particle Object as a Paintbrush
- 6.2.6. Setting the Attributes for the paintSprites
- 6.2.7. Creating Particle Sprites
- 6.2.8. Adding Custom Attributes for the Sprites
- 6.2.9. Adding Images to the Sprites
- 6.2.10. Assigning the Images to the Sprites
- 6.2.11. Rendering the Animation
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6.1. Soft Body Springs and Geometry: Simulating Magic
-
7. Rigid Body Effects
- 7.1. Rigid and Soft Body Combinations: Dynamic Dents
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7.2. Creating Animated Fissures on a Surface
- 7.2.1. Boolean Operations
- 7.2.2. Modeling the Fissure
- 7.2.3. Animating the Fissure
- 7.2.4. Preparing the Scene for Dynamics
- 7.2.5. Separating the Pieces of the Crystal
- 7.2.6. Creating Rigid Bodies from the Separate Pieces
- 7.2.7. Applying Gravity to the Active Rigid Body
- 7.2.8. Adjusting the Dynamics
- 7.2.9. Keyframing the Dynamics
- 7.2.10. Keyframing the Visibility of the Chunks
-
7.3. Rigid Body Spring Constraints
- 7.3.1. Creating the Text
- 7.3.2. Renaming the Letters Using MEL
- 7.3.3. Creating the Spring Constraint
- 7.3.4. Adjusting the Spring Constraint
- 7.3.5. Automating the Spring Rig Creation Using MEL
- 7.3.6. Creating a Shelf Button from the Script
- 7.3.7. Completing the Logo Rig
- 7.3.8. Animating the Logo
- 7.3.9. Offsetting the Driven Keys
- 7.3.10. Finishing the Animation
-
8. Hair and Fur Effects
-
8.1. Maya Hair: Using Dynamic Curves to Animate a Rope Bridge
- 8.1.1. Creating the Ropes for the Bridge
- 8.1.2. Converting the Curves to Dynamic Curves
- 8.1.3. Animating the Rope Cut
- 8.1.4. Creating a Hair Constraint
- 8.1.5. Attaching the Stick Constraint to the Second Rope
- 8.1.6. Creating a Plank for the Bridge
- 8.1.7. Attaching the Plank to the Ropes
- 8.1.8. Creating Multiple Hair Constraints
- 8.1.9. Animating the Bridge
- 8.1.10. Finishing Touches
- 8.1.11. Creating a Cache for the Dynamic Curve
-
8.2. Maya Fur: The Miracle Lawn
- 8.2.1. Creating Ramps for the Animated Textures
- 8.2.2. Animating the Ramps
- 8.2.3. Rendering the Ramps
- 8.2.4. Creating the Lawn
- 8.2.5. Adding Grass to the Lawn
- 8.2.6. Adjusting the Grass Settings
- 8.2.7. Animating the Length of the Grass
- 8.2.8. Baking the Length Channel
- 8.2.9. Animating the Color of the Lawn
-
8.1. Maya Hair: Using Dynamic Curves to Animate a Rope Bridge
Product information
- Title: Maya® Visual Effects: The Innovator's Guide
- Author(s):
- Release date: March 2007
- Publisher(s): Sybex
- ISBN: 9780470111338
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