UV Coordinate Space
One of the object types you will build in Maya is surfaces. While surfaces are positioned in 3D space using XYZ coordinates, they also have their own coordinate system that is specific to the topology of the surface, instead of using XYZ axes, this system uses U, V, and N, where U and v represent the two axes that lie on the surface and N is the surface normal axis that points out from the front of the surface. When you create a curve, it has a U direction that lets you measure points along the...
Lattices and Clusters
If you push on object through o lattice, you get the cartoon effect of on object being pushed through o keyhole. If you select the lottice and click on Display gt Component Display gt Lattice Shape, the lottice will be reploced with o copitol L. A lattice deformer surrounds o deformable object with a cage-like box that you can 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...
Hotkeys
Hotkeys will give you quick access to many of the tools found in Maya. To set up Hotkeys, select Windows gt Settings Preferences gt Hotkeys. The Hotkey Editor lets you set up either a single key or o key and a modifier key such as Ctrl, Shift, or flit, to access any tool in Maya that is listed in the Editor. It is also possible to build custom commonds using o MEL Maya Embedded Language script. This feature allows you to set up the UI to completely reflect your own workflow.
Isolate Select
The Isolate Select option allows you to hide surfaces at 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 thot it affects hardwore rendering only, allowing hidden objects to be viewed during software rendering. Using Isolate Select allows you to hide CVs on a NURBS surface. The Outlirier eon...
Pulldown
fit a frame rate of 24 fps, o 6-minute animation would require 8640 frames 24 fps x 360 sec. . Animators working with either eel animation or stop motion sometimes use double time, where only every second frame is created, then repeated twice. Double animations don't ploy bock as smoothly as the full frame rate, but they save you in rendering time. Students, especially, might consider this option when confronted with a tight deadline. You can set up double time by setting By Frame to 2 in...
Modeling for Animation
To create an animation in today's software, 3D artists must understand the pipeline from concept to rendering at a much deeper level then ever before. Animators need to foresee all the different stages from modeling to animation to rendering before ever storting o scene. Planning is the key to a successful production. After carefully creating a storyboard, you begin the modeling process, keeping in mind how the model will ultimately be animated and textured. You must decide up front whether the...
Reactive Animation
The term Reactive animation is not one that you will find in Mayo's UI. It is used to describe a number of different tools that all serve the same basic purpose. These tools all set up situations where one or more objects react to the animation of other objects. This idea of cause and effect can be seen every day. When you open up a refrigerator, its light turns on, when the wheels of o car rotate the cor moves forward, or when you raise your arm, your clavicle bone rotates. By applying...
Point Snapping
Toggling on Point Snapping allows you to snap vertices or pivot points to another point. To use Point Snapping, select the object or component you wish to snap and select the Move Tool. Press the v key on the keyboard and middle mouse click on the vertex you wish to snap to. In the example to the right, the pivot point of the scooter has been snapped to an edit point on a path.
Nonlinear Deformers
Non-linear deformers control the deformation of the surface using simple deformation handles. These handles hove easy-to-use attributes that can be changed to affect the characteristics of the deformation for each different non-linear deformer. These deformers are great for modeling objects into otherwise hard to form shapes and can also be used to animate the shape of the object to give it character. These deformers can be applied to polygons, NURBS, ond Subdivision surfaces. There are six...
Production Pipelines
The way in which you approach the animation pipeline will depend on the environment you create in. From a single artist on his or her own to an artist in a large corporation, the approach to using 3D graphics may differ. Here are some general descriptions of the production pipelines you can expect to encounter. fls o lone ortist, you will be in charge of all aspects of the production process. You will, therefore, work in a more linear process. As technical lead for yourself, you nay want to set...
Construction History 1
When you create a surface or use deformers or certain modeling tools, Maya keeps a construction history on the object. A construction history is a record of the options, geometry, modeling, and deformation actions that you used to create the object. You can use the construction history to modify an object by making simple changes to the original elements of the history. This is on incredible resource for animation ond modeling. As with almost everything else in Maya, the construction history...
Subdivision Surfaces
Subdivision surfaces in Maya are surfaces created using a combination of polygon and NURBS modeling techniques. There are several advantages to using Subdivision surfaces the surfaces are continuous, meaning there's no need for stitching Subdivision surfaces can have arbitrary topology they are not limited to four-sided patches as NURBS are and they are extremely easy and quick to use. Subdivision surfaces allow you to add detail only where needed. This is accomplished by having several...
D Transformations
When transforming on object using the Move Tool in the Top, Front ond Side views, you are constrained to move only in two dimensions. When using the Rotate and Scale tools in an orthographic view, you con transform an object in both two and three dimensions. Selecting Globol coordinates meons the object will rotote within world spoce with the Y-oxis olwoys pointing up. In this modev the rings never chonge position. Virtual Sphere that allow you to move in all directions disappears This opplies...
Rotate Options
The Rotate Tool menu offers three rotate modes to pick from - Local, Global, and Gimbal. locol is the defoult setting. Locol ollows you to rotate on object in object space with the oxis rototing olong with it. when Gimbal lock is on, you con rotate your object only one oxis ot o time.
World Space and Local Space
When you build objects in 3D, it ts possible to parent one object to another. This creates a hierarchy where the parent object determines the position of the group in world space. The child objects inherit this positioning and combine this with their own local space position. This parent-child relationship is used during the animation of an object where keyframes can be set on both the child and the parent. The different points of view afforded by orthographic and perspective views let you...
Playback
when you preview your animations, you will often use interactive ploybock. You con set the playback speed in the Preferences window. The default is Free where Moyo ploys every frome as fast os possible. Simple scenes play bock foster and complex scenes ploybock slower. You con also choose Normal playback where Maya attempts to mointain the chosen frame rate even if some frames hove to be dropped out. If you are synchronizing to sound, then Playback Speed should be set to Normal, while for...
RGB Color Space
Red, green and blue RGB ore 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...
HSV Color Space
HSV stands for hue, saturation, and value. The HSV model offers artists an easier way to build up color based on actual color properties instead of color values. The HSV color wheel is easy to understand visually. Hue is the color that appears on the wheel while Saturation defines the color's intensity, and Value defines its brightness. When you set HSV values in Maya's color palette, they are stored as RGB values. Therefore, you can't set keys on HSV values. However, you can set up a special...
Live Objects and Construction Planes
while pressing the C key on the keyboard, hold down the middle mouse button to click-drog on on isoporm. This will ollow you to snop pivot points along existing surfoce lines. Using the Snop to curves tool ollows you to snap to any point along o curve. This tool is useful to complete a Biroil operotion since all curves must be connected. while pressing the C key on the keyboard, hold down the middle mouse button to click-drog on on isoporm. This will ollow you to snop pivot points along...
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 connections inherit the same values. Shored Construction History Duplicated node 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...
File Management
Working on o computer involves saving and retrieving files from your hard disk. Directory structures are used to organize these files in a hierarchical relationship, fi typical Mayo project is made up of many files that need to be easily accessible. To orgonize these files, Maya uses a special directory structure for different file types such os 3D scenes, texture files, and final rendered images. You may also want to make specific directories for importing ond exporting files. It is,...
Transforming CurvesBuffering Curves
When attributes are keyed, their values are mapped against time, fill the keys for a single attribute are joined into an animation curve. Tangents at each key define the shape of the animation curve, or the value of the attribute in between the keys. The slope of the curve determines the attribute's speed. Thus, to control the quality of the motion, you must tweak and edit your curve. By defoult, your selected objects ore looded into the Groph Editor. From the list menu, you con choose to lood...
Tangent WeightsBreakdown Keys
While keys define the locations of points on an animation curve, curve tangents define the curve's shape and determine what the curves look like between the keys. You can assign curve tangents to the whole animation curve or you can set them on a key-by-key basis. You can also set the tangents 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 and Time line. The Graph Editor offers the best view...
Making Connections
Connections mode in Maya represent the flow of information from one node to another. You can moke your own connections between nodes as well as break connections using the Connection Editor. The Connection Editor offers a list of node attributes that con be connected to other node attributes. For example, you can map the scale of one object to influence the rotation of another. This creates a connection between the two nodes where every time you scale one, the other automatically rotates. The...
Aligning two objects using Snapping
To snap one object to another, select a control point CV, vertex, or surface point on the first object and shift select a point on the other. Choose Modify gt Snap Align Objects gt Point to Point. The first point selected will snap to the second point taking the whole object with it. Construction planes can be made live and allow you to drow a curve that is constrained to the plane surface. Second selected vertex. First selected . , . The first selected vertex will snop to the second selected...
Joining Surfaces
When modeling NURBS surfaces, there are instances where one surface is not sufficient for completing the object and more than one surface may need to be joined together. Modeling organic shapes where one surface must blend seamless into another requires an understanding of how the surface was created and how it will be deformed. The four moin options for joining surfaces are attaching, aligning, stitching, and surface fillets. For best results with any of these options, you should have the same...
Building a Custom User Interface
With MEL, you can build your own custom UI with information relative to your scene. Since most user interface elements are created using MEL, you have the power to create custom windows with buttons, sliders, and other controls to modify your scene. The Script Editor can be cpened by clicking on the Script Editor icon to the right of the Command Line or by selecting Window gt General Editors gt Script Editor____This window is divided into two sections the History section and the Input field....
ft 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 has 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...
Avoiding Gimbal Lock
When rotating an object, it is possible to place one rotational axis right on top of another. This is known as Gimbal lock. From then on, two of the axes lead to the same result hen animated. To avoid this result, add extra nodes and use one node for each rotational axis. Now the rotation of one axis does not limit your ability to rotate around the other axis. in the Rotate Tool options, you con view o Gimbol monipulotor that shows you what Gimbal Lock is. If you rotate 90 degrees around the...
Control Nodes
By having the Rotate node below the Scale node, the rototion is colculoted first. No distortion occurs this time because the rotate pivot point is always ot the center of the wheel and the scale pivot point works properly ot the base. fls you group together the parts of your model, you may want to set keys on attributes from many different levels of the hierarchy. Rather than digging through the Transform nodes to set keys, you can create a high-level control using either custom attributes or...
Adding Motion Path Markers
It is possible to create more position markers by settings keys on the motionPoth node's U-Value. This lets you control timing along the curve, fl position marker is creaited each time the U-Value is keyed. To help you position ancti set keys, you can use the motionPoth node's manipulators. These can be accessed using the Show Manipulator Tool or Set Path Key. The position morkers actually represent keys that hove been set on the motionPoth node's U-Value attribute. You con edit the value and...
Order of Operations
Within a single Transform node, transformations are calculated in the following order scale, rotation, and then translation. In many cases, this is the exact order you want. In some cases, you may want to achieve a specific effect not allowed by this order. You can, therefore, group the Transform node to itself a couple of times, then use a different node for each kind of transformation. The order of these is now under your control. Shown below is a simple example of why it makes a difference...
Nonlinear Animation 1
Non-linear animation allows you to put a large number of keyframes into a single editable clip that offers high-level control over the animation of your objects, After setting up your attributes as a Character Set, keyframes can be set and then stored in poses and clips that you edit and mi together to quickly create animations. The Trax Editor is where you bring together and blend the different clips, poses and motion capture data. These sequences are created by capturing keyframes from...