Hello and Goodbye! Here are the topics I covered during our last class...
First I started out talking about UV Mapping with Maya. I showed all the various ways of starting to map your geometry. I showed how to use a UV Checker to make sure you don't have any weird texture warping or stretching.
Using the UV editor, I demonstrated how to move UVs around to fix your texture. When UVs are ready, you can do a UV snapshot to export an image of your UVs and use that as a template for painting in Photoshop. Once you have an image painted for your mesh, bring it in as a file texture node and connect it to the color input of the mesh's shader.
Tutorials on UV texturing in Maya:
After texturing, I demonstrated shading and lighting in Arnold. I used the Arnold Standard Shader to demonstrate attributes, like color, specular, transparency, and metalness. I showed the different arnold lights in Maya, and demonstrated how to render and .exr file in layers using AOVs.
To check how my lights looked, I made sure to press 7 in my viewport window, so that lights are enabled. Also it is worth reminding you that 6 will turn on textures if you have any in your scene. Once I was satisfied with my lights, I would render my scene, which produced a higher quality image. This is where I would use the Maya Renderview window. If I wanted to see my texture or light changes update in real time, I could use the Maya IPR Render, which allows me to select a small section of the image and use that area to see every change update. I can use Keep Image in the Renderview window to save a series of renders and scroll through them to help me compare.
One I am satisfied with my light set up, I went to my Render Setting window to setup my scene for Batch Render. In the common tab, I can set Maya to render a sequence of images based on my timeline. I can select the file format, resolution, and set the camera to render from. I also can confirm where my render images will go once finished. If you have your Maya project set up properly, it should go into the images folder of your project. Next, I went to the Maya Software Tab to set attributes like image quality, motion blur, and raytracing which affect shadows and reflections.
Once my render settings are in place, I initiate the Batch Render, and watch the status of that render in the Script Editor. Once finished, I demonstrated how you can take that image sequence and open it in fCheck or whatever compositing program you are using.
Tutorial Videos:
A nice little video about Maya node editing in general
Very basic light demo in Maya
I don't have a video tutorial for the render settings at the moment, because most of the ones that exist are for Arnold which we will cover next week. If you want you can just search youtube for Arnold Render settings in Maya, if you want to get primed for class.
5) Once my up and down animatione feels good, I set keys for the translate and rotation of the ball as it is bouncing. Usually the beginning of these curves should be linear, so they ball has motion at the beginning, and flat at the end, so it slowly stops translating and rotating.
Rigging with Constraints
I demonstrated a basic concept of rigging, where we use control curves to move poly object. We set our keyframes on these control curves. I usually use a parent and scale constrain to connect the control to the object. I use these constraints, so I can keep Geo and Rig groups separate. This is good practice for rigging.
Rigging with Joints and IK
After the ball bounce, I showed off some rigging concepts. I used a joint chain on a leg mesh to show how it deforms the shape by pulling components. After that I demonstrated how to setup and use an IK Handle.
Rigging a Knee
Norman Character Rig
Lastly, at the end of the class, I showed an example of a character rig and how I pose and animate it. For class I used the Norman Rig.
animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo. If you would like to mess with some character acting, go hang out at the 11 Second Club. There you will find monthly animation competitions, based on the selected audio clip. At the end of the day, I hope you get from this lesson how animating in Maya would work. I realize rigging and skinning are very advanced concepts, so I don't expect you guys to be master riggers after this class. I just want you to know the rigging concepts before you play with a Maya rig. There are so many free rigs on the internet, it is very easy to grab one and just start animating. This is what I would suggest for people who are interested in becoming maya animators.
Hello guys. Here are some reference videos for modeling a face. Each one of these works a little differently from what I showed you. Check them out and see if it is something you would be interested in trying! The great thing about Maya and CG is that there are multiple viable solutions to the same problem. You just need to find out what works for you.
This one is a 3 part series: Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Animation
Towards the end of the class I began to show you key frame animation. This is where I used the s key to set markers on the timeline, that represented certain property or channel values. The change of values over time is interpolated by Maya. Through a series of keyframes, we can create animated movement in Maya.
Hi Class! Here you will find some other reference material for modeling a hand. You might notice some people do it differently than what I've shown you, which is ok. The point is to get familiar with the tools made available to you in Maya. Perhaps you will find a method that will work for you! Please explore these tutorial videos to get a sense for how other artist tackle the same problem. Like I've said, there is a wealth of knowledge out there!
Extrude -Use to extrude polygons from a selected face or edge.
-Remember that the extrusion comes with a local manipulator that allows you to move it locally from it's origin. The world manipulator may not be as helpful.
-Selecting a face, and moving it while holding SHIFT can extrude, but it can cause issues, so it's best not to use it this way.
-Use these operations to create a new shape based on the intersecting input shapes.
-The three operations are Intersection, Union, and Difference.
-Selection order affects the shape that is created. For example, if you want to punch a hole through a cube using a cylinder, you would select the cube first and the cylinder second.
Deformers
-Lattice deformer builds a cage around a mesh that you can manipulate in component mode. This allows you to modify your mesh in broad strokes.
-Non Linear Deformers are used to create different deform effects like bend, twist, squash, etc.
-Used to merge or weld vertices or edges to each other.
Normals -Hard/soft changes the way polys are displayed in maya. Softened edges are harder to see, while harder edges clearly define the polys. Sometimes you may need to toggle this when you are modeling when edges are hard to distinguish.
-Reversed Normals, appearing black, makes it's hard to see your mesh. Sometime this can happen with a bad extrusion, or in other situations. To fix, just select the face and reverse those normals. Create Poly
-Tool that allows you to draw vertices to create a polygon.
Nurbs Curves
-Nurbs curves can be useful tools to assist in modeling.
-IMPORTANT NOTE: By default these tools create Nurbs surfaces. I dislike nurbs as you might know, so I like to set the options for these to creat Polygons as Quads, with Count. Play with the number for Count to see how much is right for you. HOMEWORK With object manipulation, grouping, and modeling tools, make any kind of furniture you like!
Shape options are in the option menu, but also in the shape history under the channel editor.
Translate Rotate and Scale
W is translate
E is rotate
R is scale
Tool options
Moving in Object and World Space
Manipulating a Camera
Moves just like a maya object.
Camera Settings
Clipping Plane changes how far and how close the camera will render an object. Can be used to fix glitchy geometry
Focal Length is used to change how much perspective the camera shows. High number flattens the camera’s view, while a low number exaggerates the perspective.
Selection Masks
Disable or enable what is selectable in the Viewport window
Hide/show for visibilty
Ctrl + H to hide
Shift + H to show again
Touch on Hypergraph
Hierarchies
Manipulator + -
Make the manipulator physically larger or smaller. Larger manipulator makes it easy to have precision.
Channel editor
Select a channel and middle mouse drag to change the values.
Math can be done inside the channel box.
+=, -=, *=, /=
Changing pivot
Insert(Pc)/Home(Mac) to enable change pivot mode.
Alternative is to hold “D” to move the pivot.
Modify>Center Pivot to bring it back to the center of the object or group.
Point and grid snap
Hold x to grid snap, and v to point snap. To keep these turned on you can press the button at the top of maya.
Groups/locators
Same object essentially. Locators are groups that can be grabbed in the viewport. If you delete the shape node of the locator, it becomes a grou null.
Use these to organize objects in the outliner or in a hierarchy.
Freeze transformation
Zero’s out all transform values.
Parenting and Grouping methods/hotkeys
p to parent.
Shift p to unparent
Ctrl g to group
In the outliner you can select object and middle mouse drag them into another object or group, making it a child.
Organize your Outliner!
Groups objects and keep your outliner organized in case someone else needs to open your file.
Assignment:
Please use what you have learned about navigating Maya, and the manipulator tools in class to build anything you like. The point of this project is to have fun and become familiar with the fundamentals of moving and organizing objects in Maya. I will not be checking these, but if you would like to share with the class please place them in your student folders on the server.
Hello Class! Here is a small overview of the topics I covered in yesterday's class.
Maya Menus
Options - The little square next to each tool allows deeper customization options for whatever you are using. Most menu windows have a help page specific to which ever tool you are opening.
Shelves - most used maya functions layed out for quick access, but no access to the options. Options can sometimes be accessed if you have the tool editor opened.
Left tool Window
No tool Q, Translate W, Rotate E, Scale R.
Different maya viewport options below that.
Right Window
Channel Box - Info on X,Y,Z values for translate, rotate and scale.
Attribute Editor - Under the hood info on whichever object you have selected.
Tool Editor - Setting for currently active tool.
Timeline- used for animation. Will go more in depth later in the course.
Viewport Panel options -
Adjust what you see in your view port work area
4 for wireframe, 5 for smooth shaded, 6 for textures, 7 for lights.
Spacebar used to switch between different camera views
Other Windows
Outliner- Keeps track of all objects in your scene and their hierarchies.
Hypershade - Workspace for shaders
Graph Editor - Workspace for animation
Project Window, and Setting a Project Window - used to set up your maya project folders, and connect Maya to that structure for fast referencing, and file access.
Here is a great video talking about what I showed you last night, plus some extra stuff I may not have covered.
