Mastering Autodesk Maya 2016

Todd Palamar began his career creating traditional special effects for low-budget horror movies, but quickly gravitated to computer animation. His extensive experience now includes numerous straight-to-video movies, video games, dozens of military and game-style simulations, corporate commercials, and even theme park rides. Todd is the author of several Maya books, including Maya Studio Projects: Photorealistic Characters and several previous editions of Mastering Autodesk Maya.

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 Effects 549

Shading nParticles to Simulate Flames 549

Creating an nCache 551

Using the Hardware Render Buffer 553

Controlling nParticles with Fields 556

Using Multiple Emitters 556

Volume Axis Curve 560

Working with Force Fields 566

Painting Field Maps 569

Using Dynamic Fields 572

Rendering Particles with mental ray 576

The Bottom Line 579

Chapter 13 Dynamic Effects 581

Creating nCloth Objects 581

Making a Polygon Mesh Dynamic 582

Applying nCloth Presets 585

Making Surfaces Sticky 587

Creating nConstraints 589

Making nCloth Objects Expand Using Pressure 593

Additional Techniques 595

Creating an nCache 595

Creating nCloth and nParticle Interactions 597

Creating an nParticle Goal 598

Controlling Collision Events 601

Bursting an Object Open Using Tearable nConstraints 603

Crumbling Tower 604

Soft Body Dynamics 606

Creating Flying Debris Using nParticle Instancing 607

Adding nParticles to the Scene 607

Sending the Debris Flying Using a Field 610

Creating a More Convincing Explosion by Adjusting nParticle Mass 612

Instancing Geometry 613

Animating Instances Using nParticle Expressions 615

Randomizing Instance Index 615

Connecting Instance Size to nParticle Mass 620

Controlling the Rotation of nParticles 624

Bullet Physics 626

The Bottom Line 629

Chapter 14 Hair and Clothing 631

Understanding XGen 631

Creating an XGen Description 632

XGen Library 637

Rendering an XGen Description 638

Animating Using Dynamic Curves 642

Using Dynamic Curves with IK Splines 642

Creating an IK Spline Handle from the Dynamic Curve 647

Using Forces 648

Adding Hair to a Character 649

Applying Hair to a Surface 649

Determining Hair Shape 653

Styling Hair 656

Start and Rest Positions 656

Painting Follicle Attributes 658

Modifying Curves 660

Curling, Noise, Sub Clumping, and Braids 660

Rendering Hair 661

Creating Clothing for Characters 662

Modeling Clothes for nCloth 662

Using Constraints 664

Connecting Buttons to the Shirt 670

Applying Forces 671

Painting nCloth Properties 671

The Bottom Line 675

Chapter 15 Maya Fluids 677

Using Fluid Containers 677

Using 2D Containers 678

Adding an Emitter 679

Using Fields with Fluids 683

Using 3D Containers 686

Fluid Interactions 687

Emitting Fluids from a Surface 687

Making Flames 690

Igniting the Fuel 693

Filling Objects 694

Rendering Fluid Containers 700

Creating Fluids and nParticle Interactions 702

Emitting Fluids from nParticles 702

Creating Flaming Trails 706

Creating Water Effects 708

Bifrost Liquid Simulation 708

Shading Bifrost Liquids 714

Guiding Liquid 717

Creating an Ocean 720

The Bottom Line 722

Chapter 16 Scene Management and Virtual Filmmaking 725

Organizing Complex Node Structures with Assets 725

Creating an Asset 726

Publishing Asset Attributes 730

Using the Asset Editor 731

Viewing Assets in the Node Editor 733

File References 733

Referencing a File 734

Bounding-Box Representations 736

Determining the Image Size and Film Speed of the Camera 737

Setting the Size and Resolution of the Image 738

Setting the Film Speed 740

Creating and Animating Cameras 740

Creating a Camera 741

Setting Camera Attributes 744

Limiting the Range of Renderable Objects with Clipping Planes 747

Composing the Shot Using the Film-Back Settings 750

Creating a Camera-Shake Effect 752

Using an Expression to Control Alpha Offset 755

Creating Custom Camera Rigs 758

Swivel Camera Rig 758

Swivel Camera Rig Asset 760

Applying Depth of Field and Motion Blur 764

Rendering Using Depth of Field 764

Creating a Rack Focus Rig 767

Adding Motion Blur to an Animation 771

Using Orthographic and Stereo Cameras 774

Orthographic Cameras 774

Stereo Cameras 775

Using the Camera Sequencer 778

The Bottom Line 782

Appendixes

Appendix A The Bottom Line 783

Chapter 1: Working in Autodesk Maya 783

Chapter 2: Introduction to Animation 784

Chapter 3: Hard-Surface Modeling 785

Chapter 4: Organic Modeling 786

Chapter 5: Rigging and Muscle Systems 787

Chapter 6: Animation Techniques 788

Chapter 7: Lighting with mental ray 789

Chapter 8: mental ray Shading Techniques 790

Chapter 9: Texture Mapping 791

Chapter 10: Paint Effects 792

Chapter 11: Rendering for Compositing 794

Chapter 12: Introducing nParticles 795

Chapter 13: Dynamic Effects 796

Chapter 14: Hair and Clothing 797

Chapter 15: Maya Fluids 798

Chapter 16: Scene Management and Virtual Filmmaking 799

Appendix B Autodesk Maya 2016 Certification 803

Index 807