Discover how to use Maya to produce brilliant, believable content for film and TV, video games, Web design, and print. Maya instructors and special effects gurus Meade and Arima will show you everything you need to know to master Maya. Learn the entire production pipeline from easy-to-follow tutorials that will help you master modeling, texturing, animation, rendering, post-production, and much more.

• Quickly understand core concepts of 3D production, and navigate the Maya interface
• Create movement with path, nonlinear, or procedural animation, and use dynamics to run simulations of natural phenomena to create animation
• Add realism with texturing, lighting, and rendering
• Build controls to help you easily maneuver skeletons
• Model hard surfaces and organic forms with NURBS, polygons, and subdivision surfaces
• Apply post-production compositing applications such as After Effects, Combustion, and Shake

CD-ROM includes usable sample files that enhance the books tutorials

Tom Meade is a full-time Maya Instructor at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He has created 3D illustrations for Wired magazine and worked on numerous interactive CD-ROM games. For the past three years Meade has worked at 3D/FX training firm dvGarage, building video-based training products for the 3D market.

Shinsaku Arima is a Maya instructor and Visual FX artist. As a Trainer and Technical Director with ESC Entertainment, he did FX work on The Matrix: Revolutions. As FX Technical Director at The Orphanage, he has worked on The Day After Tomorrow and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Alex Lindsay has worked in computer graphics for nearly 20 years. He did FX work on Star Wars: Episode I (at JAK Films and Industrial Light and Magic). Currently he is the Chief Architect of the Pixel Corps, a guild of media artists.

Discover how to use Maya to produce brilliant, believable content for film and TV, video games, Web design, and print. Maya instructors and special effects gurus Meade and Arima will show you everything you need to know to master Maya. Learn the entire production pipeline from easy-to-follow tutorials that will help you master modeling, texturing, animation, rendering, post-production, and much more.

• Quickly understand core concepts of 3D production, and navigate the Maya interface
• Create movement with path, nonlinear, or procedural animation, and use dynamics to run simulations of natural phenomena to create animation
• Add realism with texturing, lighting, and rendering
• Build controls to help you easily maneuver skeletons
• Model hard surfaces and organic forms with NURBS, polygons, and subdivision surfaces
• Apply post-production compositing applications such as After Effects, Combustion, and Shake

CD-ROM includes usable sample files that enhance the book’s tutorials

Tom Meade is a full-time Maya Instructor at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He has created 3D illustrations for Wired magazine and worked on numerous interactive CD-ROM games. For the past three years Meade has worked at 3D/FX training firm dvGarage, building video-based training products for the 3D market.

Shinsaku Arima is a Maya instructor and Visual FX artist. As a Trainer and Technical Director with ESC Entertainment, he did FX work on The Matrix: Revolutions. As FX Technical Director at The Orphanage, he has worked on The Day After Tomorrow and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Alex Lindsay has worked in computer graphics for nearly 20 years. He did FX work on Star Wars: Episode I (at JAK Films and Industrial Light and Magic). Currently he is the Chief Architect of the Pixel Corps, a guild of media artists.

Part I Introduction to Maya

1 Core Concepts

2 The Maya User Interface

Part II 3D Modeling

3 Basic NURBS Modeling

4 Advanced NURBS Modeling

5 Polygon Modeling

6 Organic Modeling

Part III Animation

7 Animation Basics

8 Deformers

9 Character Setup: Joints, Connections, and Kinematics

10 Character Setup: Character Controls

11 Character Setup: Binding Skin

12 Character Animation

Part IV Texturing, Lighting, and Rendering

13 Texturing and Lighting Basics

14 Texturing in Practice

15 Painting in Maya

16 Rendering

Part V Particles, Emitters, and Fields

17 Particles and Fields

18 Advanced Particle Systems and Effects

19 Rigid and Soft Body Dynamics

Part VI Post-Production

20 Rendering for Post-Production

21 Compositing in Post-Production

Appendix MEL Scripting