Maya 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide Includes index

545 Pages·2007·25.643 MB·English

by  Robinson, Morgan;Stein, Nathaniel

VISUAL QUICKSTART GUIDE
MAYA 8
FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH
Morgan Robinson and Nathaniel Stein
Peachpit Press
Visual QuickStart Guide
Maya 8for Windows and Macintosh
Morgan Robinson and Nathaniel Stein
Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)
Find us on the Web at:www.peachpit.com
To report errors, please send a note to: [email protected]
Peachpit Press isa division of Pearson Education.
Copyright © 2007 by Janet Podell, Nathaniel Stein, and Morgan Robinson
Editor: Rebecca Gulick
Copy Editor: Tiffany Taylor
Technical Reviewers: Nathaniel Stein and Morgan Robinson
Proofreader: Liz Welch
Production Coordinator: Myrna Vladic
Compositor: Deborah Roberti
Indexer: FireCrystal Communications
Cover Design: Peachpit Press
Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for
reprints and excerpts, contact [email protected].
Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty. While
every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor
Peachpit Press shall haveany liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or
damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained
in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.
Trademarks
Visual QuickStart Guide is a registered trademark of Peachpit Press, a division of
Pearson Education.
Maya is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the United States and in other
countries. Macintosh and Mac OS X are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Microsoft,
Windows, Windows XP, and Windows Vista are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corp. Screenshots in this book are copyrighted by the original holders.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their prod-
ucts are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and
Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the
owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout
this book are used in editorial fashion onlyand for the benefit of such companies with
no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade
name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-47675-3
ISBN-10: 0-321-47675-1
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Acknowledgements
Morgan Robinson would like to thank Nat
Stein, who once again did more than half the
work; Victor Gavenda and Rebecca Gulick
for their editorial guidance; Tiffany Taylor
and Liz Welch for their keen attention to
detail; and everyone else at Peachpit Press
who helped make thisbook happen.
Nathaniel Stein would like to thank Victor
Gavenda for thinking of us a second time,
Rebecca Gulick for overseeing the whole
process, Tiffany Taylorand Liz Welch for
scouring the book over with an even finer-
toothed comb this time, all the rest at
Peachpit, Danny Riddell for laying the frame-
work, and, of course, Morgan Robinson for
her industrious attention to all my mistakes,
not to mention writing and reviewing the
rest of the book.
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Chapter 1: Maya Basics 1
About Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Maya’s Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Beginning a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Importing, Exporting, and Referencing . . . . . . . . 14
s
t Maya Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
n
e Chapter 2: Navigating and Changing
t
on the Interface 17
C
f Dollying, Tracking, and Tumbling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
o Using the View Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
e
l Changing the Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
b
a Changing the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
T
About Display Options and Smoothness . . . . . . . 38
Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 3: Creating Primitives and Text 43
About Primitive Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Creating Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
About Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Naming Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
About Construction History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Chapter 4: Transforming Objects
and Components 59
Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects . . . . . . . . . 60
About Pivot Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Duplication Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Mirroring and Instancing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Soft-Modifying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
iv
Table of Contents
Chapter 5: Selection Modes, Hiding,
and Templating 87
Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Selection Modes and Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Using Quick SelectSets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Hiding and Templating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
About Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Chapter 6: Grouping, Parenting,
and Aligning 107
Grouping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Parenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Grouping vs. Parenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Aligning and Snapping Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Snap Align Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Chapter 7: NURBS Curves and Surfaces 129 T
a
b
About NURBS Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 l
e
About NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 o
Creating NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 f
C
Editing NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 o
Opening, Closing, and Attaching Curves . . . . . . 138 n
t
Altering Whole Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 e
n
Interactions Between Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 t
s
Creating Surfaces from Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Surface Curves and Trims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Modifying and Matching NURBS Surfaces . . . . 156
Chapter 8: Polygons 161
Modeling Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Creating and Deleting
Polygon Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Splitting and Merging
Polygon Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Subdividing and Merging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Refining Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Surface Normals and Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Chapter 9: Subdiv Surfaces 213
Subdiv Surface Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Refining Subdiv Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Creasing Subdiv Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Mirroring and Subdivs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Subdiv Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Sculpting Subdivs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
vv
Table of Contents
Chapter 10: Skeletons and Rigging 233
About Joints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Adjusting Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
About IKHandles and Solvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
About Spline IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
About Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
The Connection Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Basic Rigging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
About Full Body IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Chapter 11: Parenting and Binding
to a Skeleton 269
Parenting to a Skeleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Using Rigid Bind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Using Smooth Bind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
s Chapter 12: Animation 285
t
n Animation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
e
t About Setting Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
n
o Setting Animation Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
C
f Importing Sound Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
o About the Graph Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
e
l About the Dope Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
b
a Muting Animation Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
T
Ghosting and Motion Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Path Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
About the TraxEditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Previewing Your Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Chapter 13: Deformers 319
Nonlinear Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Blend Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Lattices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Sculpt Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Jiggle Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Wire Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Wrinkle Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Wrap Deformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
About Deformer Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
About the Deformation Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Hiding, Showing, and Deleting Deformers . . . . 344
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter 14: Shaders, Materials,
and Mapping 345
About the Hypershade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
About IPR Renders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
About Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
About Texture-Mapping NURBS Surfaces . . . . . 360
Combining Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
About Projection Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
About Texturing Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Editing UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Swimming Textures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Texturing Using Painting Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Chapter 15: Creating Lights 397
About Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Setting Up for Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
T
About Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 a
b
Mapping Images to Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416 l
e
Looking Through a Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 o
Light Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418 f C
About Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420 o
n
Chapter 16: Cameras and Rendering 427 te
n
About Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 t
s
About Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
About the Maya Software Renderer . . . . . . . . . . 446
About the Maya Hardware Renderer . . . . . . . . . 459
About the Maya Vector Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
About Mental Ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
About Render Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Chapter 17: MELand Expressions 471
About the Script Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
About MEL Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
About Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
About Loops and If Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
About Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Using MEL Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Using Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
vii
Table of Contents
Chapter 18: Dynamics 487
Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Emitters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
Render Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Rigid-Body Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Soft-Body Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
The Dynamic Relationships Editor . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Index 517
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i
Introduction
Welcome to Maya 8 for Windows and
Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide.
Autodesk Maya is a high-end 3D graphics
program. It’s widely used in the film and
game industries to produce many of the CG
(computer graphics) movies, special effects,
I
games, and commercials you see daily. From n
t
characters to critters to cars, Maya provides r
o
a full toolset for each step of your project. d
u
Whether your aims are personal or profes- c
t
sional, realistic or stylized, Maya’s depth can i
o
help you bring your vision to life. n
Maya has long been the industry standard
software for both film and television at
studios worldwide. Its myriad toolsets, pow-
erful scripting language, and plentiful ren-
dering options make ita good option for a
variety of tasks. Recently, this flexibility, as
well as continued improvements and broader
options, have made Maya the software pack-
age of choice for much of the game industry
as well.
This book introduces you to Maya’s interface
and features. You’ll soon realize, though, that
Maya has enough depth to keep you learn-
ing for years. This book covers the different
fields in Maya, giving you the concepts and
functionality that you’ll need on your way to
becoming a Maya guru.
ix