Selecting the History Node
These ore alternatives to the Channel Box and the Hypergraph window when you want to access the History nodes. In oil cases, the object must be active or tfce cursor must be over the object when accessing the marking menu. Once selected, the node will appear in the Channel Box or Attribute Editor. This Tool lets you occess the Input node of on object with history. This Selects the History Input or Output of the selected object. By defoult, this button is On. If it is turned Off, there will be...
Rigging Up a Leg
When a choracter walks, one foot remains planted on the ground os the other moves up then down where it becomes planted so that the first foot can move step forward . The foot first touches the ground with its heel, then the foot rolls to the boll and then pushes off using the toe. This heel-to-toe motion is important to a walk cycle ond con be set up using o reverse foot setup. This foot is a joint hierarchy that is set up in the opposite direction to the leg joints. The leg's IK handle ond...
RGB Color Space
Red, green and blue RGB are the primary colors in the RGB color space. RGB images ore based on the way light mixes color, fls such, RGB images on computer screens and video monitors add red, green and blue light to define the final color. The secondary colors of the RGB palette are cyan, yellow, and magenta, and ore found where the primary colors overlap. RGB is considered to be an odditive model because colors must be added to achieve white. In the illustration below, you can see that when all...
Duplicate Along a Path
Animated Snapshot allows you to duplicate objects along a path. This is a very useful modeling technique that uses the Time Range as well as the start and end time, and By Time value set in the options window as the determining factor for the number of duplications created. To use Animated Snapshot, select both the object and path you want to snap to on frame 1. Select Animate gt Paths gt Attach to Path. This will snap your object to the path. Pick your object and select Modify gt Animated...
Animators
While the setup of scenes and characters is an important part of the process, the animation of these elements is where the art is created, finimators must tell a story using motion as the main tool. fl well set up scene gives an animator space to focus on setting keys on the various high-level controls built by the technical lead. With non-linear animation, a whole library of motion con be saved and used in different parts of a project. Such a library provides an animator with a sort of...
Rendering Scenes
Rendering is where oil of the work in setting up models, textures, lights, comeros, ond effects comes together into a final sequence of images. In very simple terms, rendering is the creation of pixels that are given different colors in order to form o complete image, fi render involves o large number of complex calculations that con keep your computer busy for quite a while. The key at this stoge in the animation process is to find a way of getting the best image quality and the fastest render...
Curve Degree
A curve's degree determines how the curve is approximated based on the positions of the CVs. The number of CVs minus the curve degree gives you the number of spans in an open curve. Animators will find thot Degree 1 and Degree 3 curves are the most useful for building geometry. Degree 1 offers o way of creating sharp edges between curve spons while Degree 3 offers o curvature continuous see section on Aligning Curves relationship betweerrspans. Degree 2 curves aren't smooth enough for...
Tangent WeightsBreakdown Keys
You con assign curve tangents to the whole animation curve or you can set them on a key-by-key basis. You can also set the ton-gents in-to and out-of key tangents by assigning different tangent types to each. You can assign tangent types to your keys in the Graph Editor, Dope Sheet ond Time line. The Graph Editor offers the best view of the results. After you have used the other tangent options to set up the curve, you can use the Fixed tangent setting to ensure the targents don't change if you...
Duplicate Upstream Graph
By duplicating upstream graph connections, you can make a copy of the selected node and all connections feeding into it. The duplicates do not share Construction History. Animated Snapshot con be used to create duplicates of on object along a path thot con then be used as o modeling guide. Animated Snapshot con be used to create duplicates of on object along a path thot con then be used as o modeling guide. Snapping icons ore ocoted in the Status line of Maya's UI. You contoggle these on ond...
Creating Subdivision Surfaces from NURBS
To convert a NURBS surface to o Subdivision surface, you can simply convert it using the Create Subdiv command. This will create a Subdivision surface for every NURBS patch selected. Therefore, to hove o continuous Subdivision mesh, you must ottach the surfaces, fl similar method is to convert the NURBS surfaces to a polygon first. The surfaces are then combined and the edges merged before converting to o Subdivision surface.
Isolate Select
The Isolate Select option allows you to hide surfoces ot both the object and component level, on a per-panel basis. To hide the Control Vertices CVs of an object, choose the CVs you want to modify and select Show gt Isolate Select. This will hide all uns-elected CVs. Another advantage of using Isolote Select is that it affects hardware rendering only, allowing hidden objects to be viewed during software rendering. Using Isolate Select ollows you to hide CV on a NURBS surfoce.
Paint Effects Dependencies
When you select o brush and draw a Paint Effects stroke in a 3D scene, you ore actually creating a curve thot provides information as to where the brush will be placed in the scene. Once the curve is drawn, Paint Effects creates a strokeShape node. This node tokes shope information from the curveShope node and applies the brush properties from the Template Brush to it. This node contains the octuol transform information for the curve. With this node, you con modify or keyframe ony onimotion or...
Buffering Curves
As you edit your animation curve, you may want to refer back to the position of the curve before your edits. Buffered curves give you a ghosted version of the start curve for reference. In the Graph Editor, select View gt Show Buffer Curves and any curves thot have been edited will disploy a buffer curve. The buffer curve shows the curve's initial shape before editing. To updote the curve to motch a new shope, click on the Buffer Curve Snapshot button. To go back to the buffer curve, click on...
Memory
Maya renders an image in smoll rectangular sections called tiles. Normally, Mayo determines the size of each of these tiles so that each tile is manageable in terms of memory. However, if your render is running out of memory, you con reduce the memory usage by forcing Maya to render smaller tiles. You would do this by explicitly setting the tileHeight ond tileWidth when rendering from a command line. The valid range is between 16 and 256 pixels where o tile that is 16 x 16 pixels will use the...
Artisrn Sculpt Surfaces Tool
Mayo Artisan provides you with a set of brushes to sculpt detailed organic models, for both simple NURBS surfaces and J polygon meshes. You can push, pull, smooth, or erase deformations on your model and even add a texture map to further displace it. Select Edit Surfaces gt sculpt surfaces to use the flrtison Sculpt Surfoccs Tool. This is an easy woy to point deformotion onto o surfoce interactively. The model ofter the Sculpt Surfaces Tool has been applied. This second image uses a higher...
Rigid Binding
Rigid binding involves the creation of joint clusters that are made up of control points. Each cluster is associated with only one joint on the skeleton. You con apply the Rigid Bind option to o surfoce by selecting the surfoce ond skeleton then choosing Skin gt Bind Skin gt Rigid Bind. If you wont to move control points from one cluster to another, you con use the Relationship Editor. You can also pick a joint, then select Deform gt Edit Membership Tool. This will display the points associated...
Adding ControlsA Typical Walk Cycle
You con control the roll of the foot by rotating the joints on the reverse foot. You con use Set Driven Key to set up a roll attribute thot rotates the different reverse foot joints at key roll volues. If this oppears too controlled, you can choose to set keys on the various joints using a Sub-character set.
Raytracing
Use reflection maps instead of Raytracing where possible. fln even distribution of geometry will allow for the most efficient Raytracing. Scenes with large ground planes and a dense clump of complex geometry in the center tend to cause major inefficiencies. To ovoid this, turn off visible in Reflections and Refractions for the ground plone. If you are running out of memory in o Raytroce and have already optimized everything, try lowering the Recursion Depth to 1 in the Memory and Performance...
Lattice Deformer
A lattice deformer surrounds a deformable object with a coge-like box that you con manipulate to change the object's shape. Operations such as translation, rotation, or scaling can be applied to the lattice object or to the components to deform the underlying surface. The lattice con encompass the entire object or any number of control points. Even a lattice can be deformed since it is also a deformable object. When a lattice is created, there are octually two lattices created an influence...
Shading 1
Maya's Shading menu offers sev-erol options for displaying objects in a scene. Shoding can be different for eoch view panel, ollowing geometry to be shown ot different levels of complexity. The more detailed a scene becomes, the greater the need to simplify the objects in it. Although Maya is very good at processing complex levels of geometry, it is a good idea to yiew your objects in a less complex shoding mode until you are ready to render or make adjustments to those objects. There ore...
Render Output
Bosed on your post-production requirements, your finol rendered imoge or sequence of images will need to suit the medium you are outputting it to. These imoge properties, such as size, format, and frame padding, are set from the Render Globols Window. The Image Formats pop-up list allows you to specify the format you need your rendered frames to be in. Maya's online documentation hos a detoiled description of how each of these formats hondles imoge, mask, and depth information. The Moyo IFF...
Graphing Clips pnd Blends
While clips do offer a high level of control, you may still want to go bock to the level of individual keys to make changes. You can make edits to the anim curves associated with both clips and blends. This feature allows you to refine your motion at any time in the process. To see the clip's onimation curves, select a clip, then click on View gt Graph Anim Curves. These curves are shared by the Source ond Rnim clips. To reshape the weight curve to control the Blend, open the Groph Editor, then...
Texturing Subdivision Surfaces
fls with o polygonal surface, to opply a texture to a Subdivision surfoce, the surfoce must have UVs. Subdivision surfaces inherit UVs from the polygonal or NURBS surfaces you created them from. To create UVs, switch to Polygon Proxy Mode and use the polygon mapping tools. Shaders need to be opplied in the Hierarchy mode to the whole surface or by selecting faces at level 0 or 1. If more detail is needed at the base level, you con add faces manually or increase the detail on the base mesh using...
Rendering and Optimization
Ps you work on the shoding, texturing, ond lighting phases of your production, you will go through mony iterations and tests before ultimately rendering the final onimation. Maya's IPR, Render View, and Botch Tenderer allow you to move efficiently through this process. Along the way, there ore several things to keep in mind to achieve optimal render times. These optimizations con take o few minutes to set up, but can sove huge amounts of time in your final render. For example, consider that 10...
Constraint Types
Constrains on object's position to match the target objects. Constroins on object's oxis to poirtt ot the torget objects. Constroins on object's axis to match those of the target objects. Constroins on object's scole to match those of the target objects. Constrains on object's position to lie on a surfoce. Aligns the object's oxis to the normols of o surface. Aligns the object's oxis to the tangent of o curve. Controls the orientation of a Rotote Plane IK chain.
A Typical Character Animation Workflow
The development ond animation of a 3D character involves o number of steps. Once you hove a design, you must begin to build the character's model, loy down skeleton joints, and rig the skeleton so that it is capoble of on appropriate range of motion. Choracter controls can also be set up to assist the animation process. while it is possible to work in a linear fashion, starting with modeling ond ending with rendering, most productions require some form of concurrent work to be done, fin...
Star Wars Episode I
Star Wort Cpif de I - The Phontora Menace 1999 lucoifilm ltd and ' All nghtt reserved. Uted under authorization. Unauthorised duplication it o violation of applicable low. In Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace, every shot was on effect. This remarkable fact is a testament to the expertise of Industrial Light Magic ILM . while many techniques were used to create effects in The Phantom Menace, computer animation played a key role. Maya was used to animate several scenes, such as the pod race...
Rotate Plane Solver
This is the first joint that is influenced by the IK handle. Every joint from this one to the end effector will be affected by the IK solver. Joints in the chain that hove zero degrees of freedom will not be effected. The end effector is the end of the joint choin that is cefined by the IK hondle position. By moving the IK hondle, you affect the rotation of oil the joints in the choin. The rotate plone solver includes o plane that is defined using the IK hondle vector os one axis ond the Pole...
Selection Priority
Objects ond Components ore selected in order of priority based on on ossumed production workflow. For exomple, if you wont to select both joints ond surfaces, Moyo onticipotes thot you wont to select joints first. To select more thon one object with different priorities, select the first object ond shift-dick on the object of different priority. Component selection mosks offer o variety of pick masks to choose from. Right-clicking on o mask dispioys more selection options. -iHEdfcPoirte B Curve...
Surface Materials
Materials in the real world react to light by absorbing or reflecting it. Polished surfaces ore shiny because they reflect light with strong highlights, while rough surfaces hove a softer look because they disperse light. A Material node is a mathematical shading model that simulates o natural reaction to light. The Material node contains a number of attributes that let you control how surfoces are shaded. Mayo includes several material types, such as Phong, Blinn, ond Lambert, that each define...
Using Invigorator
The best and easiest way to create logos is to use Invigorotor' by Zaxwerks'. There is a light version of this product included with Maya. When installed, an Invigorator menu item appears in the Create menu. This will prompt an Import window where you can choose any vector-based artwork. The scale of the artwork before importing into Invigorator olso impacts the settings. You may need to enlarge the artwork prior to importing. Also, Invigorator creates a History node thot lets you open the same...
Refining the Motion
To add complexity to your walk cycles and give them more character, you can animate body parts other than the feet. The swing of the arms, the rotation of the pelvis, and the shifting of weight to the planted foot all contribute to a more dynamic walk. If you are animating with non-linear animation, create sub-characters sets for the feet and the arms. This makes it easier to create overlapping action as the arms move with their own purpose. To odd high-level controls, you can set up nodes and...
Super White
While an RGB value of 1, 1, 1 produces white, there are cases when these values can be exceeded to create super white, As you build textures in Maya, you may want to use super-white values to help you achieve certain effects. When these images go to a compositing or paint package, super-white values will return to 1, l, 1. Color can be stored on the computer using different palettes and pixel depths, fl color palette makes only certain pixel values available to an image. Most images are stored...
Blending
when you have two clips that either overlap or are separated by a few frames, you may want to create a Blend to establish a smooth transition between the clips. To Blend, simply select the two clips, then click on Create gt Blend in the Trax Editor. This Blend retrains connected os you move the clips around. Without Blend, the animation ploys through the first clip, then jumps to the second clip. This cre-otes o break in the motion. with blend, there is o more gradual transition from the first...
Working with Paint Effects
P mating your brush unleoshes the true power of Point Effects. Some of the pre-set brushes already contain animation. Therefore, animating these brushes is simply a matter of pressing the Play button. An understanding of the types of animation that can be applied to o brush or stroke can take Paint Effects off the canvas and into your animated scenes. Methods of Animating Brushes and Strokes There are a number of methods you can use to animate a Paint Effects brush. In some cases, it is as easy...
Modeling with Nonlinear Deformers
The drill bit begins as a scaled NURBS primitive sphere with high detail. The Control Vertices CVs on the top pole of the sphere are selected and moved to elongate the drill bit. The shape is then flattened by scaling. Detail is added at the tip by manually adjusting CVs. fi Twist deformer is added to the overall shope. The geometry becomes pink when selected, indicating that the surface is connected to the deformer. The effect of the twisting is localized to influence only o specific region of...
A Typical Motion Path
To set up a path animation, start by drawing a curve. Next, select the object's root node, then the curve, and then choose Animate gt Paths gt Attach to Path. This places the selected node on the curve and uses position markers to indicate where the start and end of the motion will be. When you attach to a path, a motionPoth node is created that hos attributes you can work with for added control. By default, your object will simply move along the path. There are a number of options available...
Hierarchical Animation
When you create models in Maya, they are often built of many pieces, each represented by its own Transform node in the scene hierarchy. To help you organize these ports and for others to understand your models, you can build up hierarchies using grouped Transform nodes. These hierarchies also play an important part in how you animate. For example, if you were to group together all the parts of a door handle, hinges, wood , you could set the pivot point of the root node of the hierarchy at the...
Default Views
In Maya, the default views are set as Perspective, Top, Front, and Side. The Perspective view is a representation of your object in 3D space allowing you to move along the X, Y, ond Z oxis. The Top, Front, and Side views are referred to as orthographic views ond allow you to move in two dimensions at a time. In addition to the default views, you can also create your own camera angles, to add a new 2D view, select Panels gt Orthographic gt New. Also, to add a new 3D view, select Panels gt...
Flow Path Object
The Flow Path Object function creates a lattice around the object that has been animated on a motion path. This technique allows the object to deform to the shape of the curve. There are two options around the object or around the path curve. They both achieve the some look unless you decide to odd deformations to the lattice. Six CVs oround the top eyelid ore clustered ond weighted. The pivot point for the cluster is then placed at the center of the eye so the surfoce deforms oround the...
Using the Trim Tool
The Trim tool uses curves-on-surfoce thot ore either closed or meet the edge of the surface to perform a trim. The following example has 0 curve-on-surface created by projecting 0 NURBS curve in the Front view. The curves gets projected onto anything in its path in the Front view. When the Trim Tool is octive, it will prompt you to select o surfoce with o curve on it. The surfoce will then turn into a dotted wireframe mode prompting you to then select the oreo thot will be kept defoult setting...
Utility Nodes
In the Hypershade window, you can select Create gt Utilities and choose from a number of special nodes designed to help build shading groups. Some examples include a Multiply Divide node, a Condition node, a Clamp node, Reverse node, ond a Plus Ninus Average node. By dragging other nodes into the Hypershade window, from the outliner, you can then shift-drag nodes onto eoch other to connect attributes using the Connection Editor. These nodes are most commonly used when building shading networks...
Rendering for Compositing
Many 3D artists choose to render their productions in multiple layers and or passes that are later combined ond finished through compositing. Compositing is the process of merging multiple images into one imoge to create a final look. ft common misconception is thot compositing is only used by large production houses where there are many 3D artists. However, smaller houses ond individual artists con also benefit from the flexibility and advantages offered by compositing. While it is true that...
Forward Kinemotics
The use of joint rotations to pose o character is colled forward kinematics. When a joint is rototed, all the joints lower in the hierarchy follow. This demonstrates a typical hierarchical relationship that reflects the nature of joint skeletons. Rotating joints one at a time can involve a great deal of selection ond onimotion. It is o good ideo in a situotion such os the bending of a finger, to use o control attribute on a higher level node to control the rotation of all the joints using...
Lighting Setups
The l ght is hitting the objects directly from obove. The spherical shapes appear cut in holf, while the rectangular shapes arc only defined on one of their faces. The light is hitting oil the surfaces equally. The rectangular objects are receiving equal illumination on oil faces. This makes it hard to read the shape. The object's shadow is also hidden. The light is hitting each surface of o different angle. Now the faces ore cleorly defined with distinct levels of illumination. The drower's...
Source Clip
When you create a Source clip, all the keys on your character are captured even if they are outside the chosen time range. The Start ond Duration attributes set how much of the animation will be used by the clip. This sets the in and out points of the clip, which con be very useful when working with motion-coptured animation. Source clips with their Pose attribute turned on are stored in the Poses directory of the Visor. Click on o clip or pose with your middle mouse button ond drag it to one...
Polygon Primitives
Mayo includes a number of polygon Primitives that con give you o storting point for your model. These Primitives, with the exception of the plonef are closed shapes and all Primitives are created with a default set of UV information. These Primitives hove construction history and their subdivisions can be modified before or after creation. Using some of the more common polygon modeling tools, the steps for creating o polygonol heod ore illustroted below. A defoult cube wos created ond then...
Modeling for Games
Modeling for o reol-time 3D application con provide some interesting challenges. Issues like face typef face pla-narity, non-manifold geometry, and polygon count con lead you to omit detail in one area because the geometry in another must be cleaned up. This clean up con require more polygons because certain faces must be triangulated, fill of this, however, will depend on the engine you ore building models for. It is always a good idea to clarify your engine requirements before you begin...
Adding Motion Path Markers
It is possible to create more position markers by setting keys on the motionPoth node's U-Value. This lets you control timing along the curve. A position marker is crealted each time the U-Value is keyed. To help you position andtJ set keys, you can use the motionPoth node's manipulators. These can be accessed using the Show Manipulator Tool or Set Path Key. As on object turns corners, Bomk sets how much it will rotate around the curve in response to turns in the curwe. The position morkers...
Duplicate Input Connections
Objects that are duplicated using Duplicate Input Connections share the same Construction History. This means if you were to edit the input attributes of one object, all downstream con-nectionS'inherit the same values. In the obove example, the sections of the selected object have been mcreosed. thereby changing the sections of the duplicate. In the obove example, the sections of the selected object have been mcreosed. thereby changing the sections of the duplicate.