Synopses & Reviews
CREATE REALISTIC CHARACTERS WITH MAYA 2012
How do you make human characters look really human? Step into the studio with veteran animator Todd Palamar and learn how to use Autodesk Maya 2012's sophisticated tools to create amazingly realistic characters for film, games, and television. As you work on a series of projects, you'll learn body and facial rigging and how to do hair, skin, muscles, lighting, motion-capture, and much more. An Autodesk Official Training Guide, this book offers you the very best, professional-level training for a career.
Create a character named Jack, starting with his skeleton
Build facial rigging that allows Jack to talk and show emotion
Understand hair in all its glorybangs, bowl cuts, wet hair, thinning hair, growing hair, and more
Master fur tools and create eyebrows, eyelashes, and Jack's beard
Add blood, sweat, tears, and more with textures and nParticles
Outfit your character in field pants, safari shirt, and a bomber jacket
Bring Jack to vivid life with Performance Capture, made famous in Avatar
Simulate hair, fur, clothing, and skin
Create your own motion-capture studio
Simulate muscle motion using motion capture
VALUABLE COMPANION DVD
Enhance your learning with real-world videos on the DVD. The DVD also provides support files, textures, tools, professional shaders, and more.
Synopsis
The bar keeps getting higher for Maya artists to create human characters that look more, well,
human. Autodesk Maya 2012 has the sophisticated tools to make realistic characters, but human artists still need to know how to harness them to get results that audiences believe.
Maya Studio Projects: Photorealistic Characters is an all-projects book that shows you how to use Maya 2012’s tools to make realistic characters that are ready for professional-level films, videos, and games. Start with a skeleton to create a character; build a facial rig; create different hair styles; use Maya’s Fur to create swarthy facial hair such as a beard; experiment with textures and nParticles; fashion your character’s shirt and bomber jacket using Maya’s nCloth; and understand the process of Performance Capture.
Projects serve as a guide for readers to complete their own version. Each project comes with starter, intermediate, and final Maya scene files to validate results, as well as real-world videos for reference.
The projects are ideal for professionals already in the field who want to enhance their skill set and also for advanced students who are getting ready to break into the field.
Synopsis
Create realistic characters with Maya tools and this project-based bookMaya character generation tools are extremely sophisticated, and there's no better way to learn all their capabilities than by working through the projects in this hands-on book. This official guide focuses on understanding and implementing Maya's powerful tools for creating realistic characters for film, games, and TV. Use a variety of tools to create characters from skeleton to clothing, including hairstyles and facial hair, and learn how to use Performance Capture. A DVD includes supplementary videos, project support files, textures, tools, professional shaders, and more.
- This project-based book focuses on Maya's powerful tools for creating realistic characters for TV, film, and games
- Covers key techniques necessary to make a character work in a professional setting: texturing, sub-surface scattering, hair, fur, homemade motion-capture, muscle systems, and clothing
- Includes a DVD featuring supplementary videos, project support files, textures, tools, professional shaders, and more
- An Autodesk Official Training Guide
Maya Studio Projects: Photorealistic Characters is an excellent training aid for both Maya newcomers and seasoned pros.
About the Author
Todd Palamar began his career creating traditional special effects for low-budget horror movies and quickly gravitated to computer animation. After working on numerous straight-to-video movies, he entered the video game industry. Todd has extensive freelance experience, including dozens of military and game-style simulations, corporate commercials, and theme park rides. In addition, he has written several Maya books, including Maya Studio Projects: Dynamics.
Table of Contents
1 Body Skeletons.
2 Face Rigging.
3 Hair.
4 Fur.
5 Blood and Sweat.
6 Clothing.
7 Performance Capture.
8 Composition.