Maya reference guide

Official Autodesk Learning Tool

Autodesk Maya 2008 Reference Guide 速

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Contents: General Interface Overview

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Useful Hotkeys & Mouse Combinations

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Basic Topics

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Common Windows and Editors

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Advanced Topics

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Modeling Common Windows and Editors

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Basic Topics

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Advanced Topics

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Animation Common Windows and Editors

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Basic Topics

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Advanced Topics

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Dynamics Common Windows and Editors

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Basic Topics

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Advanced Topics

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Rendering Common Windows and Editors

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Basic Topics

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Advanced Topics

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Interface Overview 1 3

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1 Main Menu Bar

4 Tool Box

8 Time Slider

The main menu bar’s first six items are for general interaction with the software. The remaining menu items can change depending on the selected module. There is also a Help menu at the end of the menu bar.

The Tool Box gathers the basic manipulation tools needed to work in 3D. These tools are also known as the QWERTY tools, since each one is assigned to a hotkey corresponding to the first six letters on the first row of your keyboard.

While animating, all of the time manipulation occurs in the Time Slider. Scrubbing in the Timeline will change the current time, while the buttons on the bottom right control the playback of your animation.

2 Status Line

5 3D Views

9 Command Line

The Status Line displays the current module and common task buttons such as file interaction, selection mode and selection mask. You can toggle the display of the different categories by clicking on the vertical separators.

There are two types of 3D views in Maya, the Perspective, which is the most common, and the orthographic view. The default four-view layout can be changed to accommodate your needs.

The Command Line can be used to manually enter Maya Embedded Language and Python commands.

Knowing MEL is not required, however, it can greatly improve your working speed. The right-hand side of the Command Line displays any results, warnings or errors that may occur.

3 Shelves Common tasks, customized actions and/or scripts can be grouped in the shelves for quick access. This tool has been designed to increase your speed. Almost any action in Maya can be created as a shelf button.

6 Channel Box The Channel Box shows the different keyable attributes that can be changed over time for selected object(s).

The basic transform attributes are translate, rotate, scale and visibility.

10 Help Line The Help Line displays comments, tips and instructions that can vary depending on which tool is currently in use or where the cursor is currently positioned.

7 Hotbox Perhaps one of the most commonly used tool by advanced users is the Hotbox. The Hotbox displays in a convenient way all the different menus found in Maya.

This tool is displayed by pressing and holding down the space bar anywhere in the interface.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Useful Hotkeys & Mouse Combinations Tools and Actions Several hotkeys execute frequently used commands, saving you from having to navigate the menu.

Manipulators (QWERTY) Q W E R T Y

Pick tool Move tool Rotate tool Scale tool Manipulator tool Selects the last tool used

Undo and Redo Z Shift + Z

Undo last action Redo last action

Framing objects F A

Frames the selected object(s).

Frames all objects in the scene.

Duplicate Ctrl + D

Repeat last action G

Shift + G

Repeats the last command performed. This could be a menu item, a tool or the creation of an object.

Repeat it at the current mouse position.

Group Ctrl + G

Groups the selected objects. If nothing is selected, it creates a null group.

Parent P Shift + P

Parents the selected object to the last selected object.

Unparents the selected objects to the world.

Hide Ctrl + H

Hides all selected objects

Cut, Copy and Paste Duplicates the selected objects

Delete

Ctrl + C Ctrl + V Ctrl + P

Cuts the selected objects Copies the selected objects Pastes the selected objects

Delete or Backspace deletes selected objects.

General Maya Keys Useful keys that you should know about.

File Action Ctrl + N Ctrl + O Ctrl + S

Tools steps Opens a new scene Opens a file browser Saves the current file

Hotbox The spacebar pops open the hotbox, allowing for quick access to all the menus in Maya, and even the menus of the active panel.

Manipulator size If you find the manipulators too big or too small, the + (plus) and - (minus) keys will change the manipulator drawing size.

Switching Views While holding the spacebar displays the hotbox, quickly pressing and releasing it causes the layout of the main Maya interface to switch to the desired view, or back to the chosen layout.

Some tools in Maya require multiple steps for complete execution. Return or Enter confirms a step, wile Escape aborts the current tool execution.

Attribute Editor Ctrl + A brings up the Attribute Editor, which is very useful for editing an object and/or its input output connections.

Camera moves By default, there is no undo or redo for camera manipulation. Use the [ and ] keys to undo and redo those moves.

Snapping objects Holding X during manipulation snaps an object to grid units.

Holding V during manipulation snaps an object to points such as locators, CVs, etc.

Holding C during manipulation snaps an object to a curve or a NURBS isopram.

Hierarchy Navigate your selection by hierarchy with the keyboard arrows.

Pick walk up and down Up arrow Moves the current selection to a parent.

Down arrow Moves the current selection to a child.

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Pick walk left and right Left arrow Right arrow

moves selection to the previous child. moves selection to the next child under.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Useful Hotkeys & Mouse Combinations Function Keys The function keys are very important, since they allow you to quickly change the different menu sets and selection modes.

Help

Selection Mode

F1 will invoke the Maya help documents in your web browser. From there, you can easily get answers to your questions.

In Maya, you can interact with objects in two main ways: object mode and component mode.

Menu Sets

F8

Each Maya menu set has a function key assigned to it. Pressing these function keys changes the current menu.

F2 F3 F4

Animation Polygons Surfaces

F5 F6

Toggles the selection mode from one to the other.

Masks Quickly access different component masks.

Dynamics Rendering

F9 F10

F11 F12

Vertex Edge

Face UVs

Numeric Keys The numeric keys are also assigned significant actions, switching how the scene is drawn.

1, 2 and 3 - NURBS resolution

4, 5, 6 and 7 - Drawing mode

These keys change the drawing resolution of NURBS objects. Depending on your computer’s power and how it manages to draw the scene, you might want to go for 1 low, 2 medium, or 3 high drawing resolution.

These keys change the display of the objects in your scene.

4 5 6 7

Shows all objects in wireframe Shows all objects shaded Displays textures on shaded objects Calculates rough lighting

Camera Controls By pressing and holding the Alt key along with different mouse button combinations, you can navigate your scene. The Tumble Tool is only used in the Perspective view to rotate, but you can track and dolly in many other views such as the Orthographic, Hypergraph, Hypershade, Visor and Render View.

Tumble

Dolly

Press and hold the Alt key and use the LMB to rotate the camera around in the 3D Perspective view.

Press and hold the Alt key and use the RMB to dolly in and out of your scene. The mouse wheel has also the same effect.

Track Press and hold the Alt key and use the MMB to pan left, right, up, and down.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Basic Topics Using Interface Layouts

Display Layers

On the left side of the Maya interface is the Quick Layout bar. These buttons lets you customize the panel layout so you can use the interface more efficiently.

Objects can be assigned to different layers and then hidden in a single click. By default, the layers are shown right under the Channel Box in the main interface. You can change the layout using the buttons located above the Channel Box.

Temporarily customizing layouts 1 Click on the desired layout button in the Quick Layout bar. Your interface will update to the selected layout.

2 Left click on the down arrow box(es) located at the bottom of the layout bar.

3 Select the desired panel for that layout panel position in the layout.

Create customized layouts 1 Access the Panels Editor by selecting Window > Settings/Preferences > Panels.

2 Click the New Layout button in the Layouts tab.

3 Rename your newly created layout and press Enter.

4 Select the Edit Layout tab to customize your layout.

Assign objects to a layer 1 Press the Create a New Layer button.

2 Select the desired objects.

3 Right click on the layer and select Add Selected Objects.

Script Editor The Script Editor can look intimidating at first, but it is filled with features designed to aid and ease your scripting tasks.

Drag + drop Highlight and drag from the history section to the input section.

Execute a script

5 Change configuration settings.

Execute a script by pressing the Enter key on the numeric keypad or by pressing Ctrl + Enter

6 Click close.

Source a script

Toggle full view

Source a MELscript by dragging the file onto the interface or browse by selecting File > Source Script.

1 Press and release the spacebar over a panel to maximize it.

2 Press and release the spacebar again to come back to the chosen layout.

Increase/Decrease font size Hold down the Ctrl key and use the mouse wheel to change the font size.

General Application Settings It is good to review all the different Maya settings from the Preferences window once in a while.

Construction History

1 Click on the Preferences button, located at the bottom right of the interface.

By default, Maya saves construction history when working with scene objects.

Sometimes you want to keep the history, but sometimes it is beneficial to delete it to prevent problems. You can quickly turn this feature on and off through the interface.

2 Select the Setting category.

Toggle the construction history

3 Change the desired units to fit your project.

1 Locate the Construction History button in the Status bar.

Enable/Disable undo

2 Enable or disable the construction history for upcoming actions.

1 Select the Undo category and set the number to suit your needs.

Delete construction history on selected objects

Changing the playback speed

1 Select the objects with unwanted history.

1 Select the Timeline category and change the playback speed to customize how you want your scene to play over time.

2 Select Edit > Delete by type > History.

Changing the working units

Channel Box vs Attribute Editor

Delete construction history for the entire scene 1 Select Edit > Delete all by type > History.

Maya offers you the ability to switch the Attribute Editor for the Channel Box in the main interface to prevent wasting valuable space by displaying the same information twice in both editors.

Open the Attribute Editor in its own window 1 Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences.

2 Select the Interface category.

3 Set Open Attribute Editor in Separate Window.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Basic Topics Underworld Nodes

Customize the Hotbox

Underworld nodes can be defined as nodes that do not appear in the 3D views They usually contain valuable information and can affect other objects. Viewing these nodes can help you understand why you get certain results.

If you use the hotbox, you may find that there are rarely used menus being displayed. You can customize it to display only specific menus sets.

View the underworld nodes in the Hypergraph 1 With the desired objects selected open the Window > Hypergraph: Hierarchy.

2 Click on Input and Output Connections button.

3 Follow the connections going from/to your objects.

View the underworld nodes in the Outliner 1 Open the Window > Outliner.

2 Under the Display menu, turn off the DAG objects only.

3 All the scene underworld nodes are listed.

Show menus only for a specific menu set 1 Press and hold spacebar to display the hotbox and click on Hotbox Controls.

2 Drag over the desired menu set then select the option to display that menu set only.

Hotbox Marking Menus There are more menus hidden in the hotbox. Notice the hotbox is divided into five sections: center, north, south, east and west. Each one of these sections hides a marking menu.

Hotbox marking menus 1 Pop the hotbox by holding down the spacebar.

Optimize Scene Size When working in a scene, sometimes you will create and break connections. Doing so is not incorrect, but it can leave unused nodes in the underworld, increasing the file size. Here is how to delete these unused nodes.

Optimizing the scene size

2 Click the different sections to discover the marking menus.

3 Drag over the desired action.

Recover Data After a Crash

1 When your scene is opened, select File > Optimize Scene Size > o.

If Maya crashes, it will attempt to save a crash file on disk in order to minimize work loss.

2 Enable all the desired actions.

Recover data

3 Click Optimize or Apply.

1 Look for a Maya file in the Documents/temp directory in your home folder.

If the TEMP (Windows/Mac) or TEMPDIR (IRIX/Linux) variables are set, the recovery file will be saved to the path in the variable instead.

4 Open the Script Editor for more details on what was removed.

2 Open the file and check your scene to see if you are missing any data.

3 Resave the file to another location.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Common Windows and Editors Attribute Editor

Script Editor

The Script Editor is used to create macros by dragging text from the history pane to the Input pane. These macros or scripts can then be edited, executed, saved or dragged to a shelf. The history pane will display results, warnings or errors generated from commands, MEL scripts or Python scripts.

The most common editor is the Attribute Editor. An object can be defined as a group of attributes that can be modified and animated. This editor is used to review the attributes of selected objects and browse input and output connections.

Reference Editor

Outliner

The Outliner lists all the objects in your scene and lets you browse hierarchies.

You can also select, parent and rename objects through this window.

The Reference Editor is the easiest way to see which files your scene is referencing and it allows you to create, load, unload or remove them. A reference is a separate file that is displayed and animated in the current scene, but not saved with it.

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Advanced users can list the underworld nodes, such as construction history or scene configuration nodes.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Common Windows and Editors Tool Settings

Preferences

All the general preferences in Maya can be quickly reviewed, modified and saved through the Preferences window. General settings include the unit of measurement and enabling or disabling unlimited undos.

The Tool Settings window lets you change how the current tool behaves. Most tools have settings that can be accessed through this window. In most cases, double clicking on a tool in the Tool Box will display the Tool Setting Window.

Shelf Editor

The Shelf Editor allows you to customize and organize your shelves. You can add, rename or remove shelves, modify the appearance of buttons, and edit the button commands. Saving your shelves is recommended in order to use them in another Maya session.

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Hypergraph: Hierarchy

The Hypergraph is similar to the Outliner window, but it has several advantages. It allows you to edit the input and output connections between objects. It displays animated object with slanted sides. Use the same mouse controls as the view panels to navigate.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Advanced Topics Hotkeys You can set custom Hotkeys for repetitive actions with the Hotkey Editor. Note that you should copy your Maya preferences to other computers to conserve them.

Create a hotkey for a generic command

Listing all hotkeys

1 Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Hotkeys.

1 Click on the List All button and browse the Hotkeys by keys or by category.

2 If your Hotkey’s command is a generic Maya command, such as Show Selected or Render View, find it in the Categories and Commands sections of the editor.

Then check if a hotkey is already assigned in the Current Hotkeys field.

Finding a command

3 If you know which key or key combination you want for your hotkey, enter it in the Assign New Hotkey section.

1 Click on the Search button in the lower right corner of the editor.

2 Type the command and press Enter. Use asterisks as wildcards if it returns no results.

4 With the desired command selected click on Assign.

Create a hotkey for a custom command or script 1 In the bottom section of the editor, click New. 2 Give a name and description to the Hotkey command.

3 It is recommended that you put the new command in the User Category.

4 Type or copy your command or script in the Command field.

5 Click Accept. Your custom command is now listed in the upper part of the editor.

6 Continue with the same procedure as for a generic command Hotkey.

Shelves

userSetup.mel

The Shelves can greatly improve your speed when working with Maya. You can completely customize their appearance through the Shelf Editor.

If you need to execute scripts or commands every time you launch a new Maya session, it might be easier to put them into a MEL file which is always sourced when Maya starts.

Add a button to shelf 1 Press and hold Ctrl + Shift, then select the desired menu item. The item appears in the current shelf.

OR 1 Type MEL in the Script Editor and highlight the text.

2 MMB-drag the text to the desired shelf location.

3 You can customize the look of the newly created button through the Shelf Editor.

Review a shelf button script

Using userSetup.mel 1 Locate the userSetup.mel file in your Maya/script/ folder. If the file does not exists, create it.

2 Copy or type the MEL commands you want to be executed for every Maya session.

3 Save the file and launch Maya.

Save Panels with File

1 MMB-drag the shelf button to the input section of the Script Editor.

By default, when you save a scene file, Maya will also save the position of all the opened windows. You have the option to turn this feature off

OR

1 Open the Preferences window.

1 Open the Shelf Editor.

2 Select the UI Elements category.

2 Browse to your button in the Shelf Contents tab.

3 Click on the Edit Commands tab.

3 Find the Save panel layouts with file and Restore saved layouts from file check boxes.

4 Save your changes before closing the editor.

4 Uncheck both if you do not wish to use this feature.

Delete a shelf button 1 MMB-drag the shelf button onto the garbage can icon located to the far right of the shelves.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide General: Advanced Topics Create custom marking menus

Manipulator Behavior

A marking menu is a contextual menu which pops when combined with a custom hotkey. These menus are useful to gather frequently used commands that would not be together otherwise.

In order to transform objects in your scene, you need manipulators. Some Hotkeys will change their behavior.

Creating a marking menu

MMB-drag a manipulator

3 MMB-drag scripts or shelf buttons in the different slots of the menu.

The MMB can help you transform objects on a desired axis without touching the manipulator itself. For translate and scale, Maya will transform the object on one axis, depending on the direction you move the mouse. Holding Shift will allow you to transform the object based on the view. For rotating an object, the MMB will rotate based on the view.

4 Give your new menu a name.

Edit Pivot mode

5 Test your custom menu in the test area at the bottom of the window.

The insert key toggles objects between normal manipulation mode and Edit Pivot mode. Editing the pivot of an object changes where the transformations originate.

1 Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Marking Menu Editor.

2 Click on Create Marking Menu.

6 Once you are done, click Save. Notice that your new marking menu now shows up in the Marking Menus editor.

7 Click on Apply settings.

8 Open the Hotkey Editor to assign a Hotkey to the new menu found in the User Marking Menus category.

9 Press the Hotkey then the LMB to access your menu.

Customizing with scriptJobs

Plug-in Manager

The scriptJob command is used to call other commands when certain conditions are met. It can be a good way of performing custom steps when a file is opened, or each time an object is selected. For example, if you would like a certain script to be executed each time you select an object, you can do so with the scriptJob MEL command.

When you need specific tools or commands, Maya Link Library (.mll) can be used. These plug-ins can be loaded automatically or on demand with the Plug-in Manager.

Print a message every time .something is selected

1 Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager.

1 Open the Script Editor and type the following code: scriptJob -e “SelectionChanged” “print\”Annoying message!\\n\””;

2 If you cannot find your plug-in in the list, click on Browse to locate it.

2 Select different objects and view the results in the Script Editor.

4 Check the Auto Load box to load the plug-in every time Maya starts.

Killing a scriptJob

5 Press the information button to review the plug-in information.

Loading a plug-in

3 Check the Loaded box to load the plug-in immediately.

1 The easiest way to kill a scriptJob is to know its job number. When you don’t know that number, type: scriptJob -listJobs; 2 Search for the scriptJob to kill and note the number.

3 Enter the following code and job number to kill the job: scriptJob -kill 49

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Common Windows and Editors Artisan

Paint Effects

Paint Effects is usually used to add enhanced 3D elements to your scene, but because it can be converted to polygons, you can use this tool to create models of trees, grass or hair. Paint Effects geometry also retains its construction history, so you can modify the Paint Effects parameters and immediately see changes.

The Artisan sculpting tool is perfect for moving vertices quickly with the stroke of a brush. Simply paint your geometry with the Sculpt Polygon Tool or Sculpt Surfaces Tool to push and pull vertices to achieve the shape you want.

Visor

Relationship Editor

The visor is used with Paint Effects to select different brushes to paint with. A large variety of brushes are available by default, and you can customize them to suit your needs.

The Relationship Editor provides a single place to create and edit relationships in Maya. A relationship is a collection or grouping of objects or components for sets, deformer sets, character sets, partitions, display layers, shading groups and light linking.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Common Windows and Editors Components Editor

The Component Editor allows you to edit data assigned to components. For example, use this window to edit the weights assigned to individual CV’s by cluster deformers.

Other Useful Windows and Editors

There are many other windows and editors you can use for modeling purposes. The Attribute Editor is useful to review all the different attributes or connections of a shape; the Hypergraph and Outliner for hierarchy tasks; the Script Editor for MEL and Python commands or scripts; and the Tool Settings window to customize tools to achieve your desired results.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Basic Topics Primitives

Artisan

To begin modeling, you usually start from a primitive shape and modify it to get to your final shape. For example, a head can start as a sphere, an arm as a cylinder and a car as a cube.

The most intuitive way of adding details to an object is to push and pull the surface just like a sculptor would do with clay. Artisan lets you use a mouse or a tablet to sculpt any geometry type.

Creating primitives

Using the Sculpt Tool

1 Determine the kind of primitive you need and select its shape from the Create menu.

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Newly created primitives in Maya always have a construction history node listed under the Input section of your object in the Channel Box. Change these attributes to get the desired initial shape and divisions from the primitive.

3 Move, rotate and scale your shape to get it to the desired position and proportion.

4 Go in Component mode and select the appropriate selection mask.

Select a polygonal geometry and ensure it has enough subdivisions to create nice details. If not, add subdivisions manually, or by using Edit Mesh > Add Divisions.

2 Select Edit Mesh > Sculpt Geometry Tool > o. Notice a red circle is drawn under your mouse when you hover over the geometry.

3 Under the Brush section, change the radius of our brush for the desired size.

4 Under Sculpt Parameters, select the desired Push, Pull, or Smooth operation and select Normal as the Reference Vector.

5 Begin modifying the appearance of the primitive.

5 Change the Max Displacement value to diminish or increase the effect of sculpt deformer.

6 Use the appropriate tools from the Modeling menu set.

6 Draw directly on the geometry to sculpt it.

Lattices

Polygon Extrusion

It can be very difficult to get a smooth result when manipulating groups of components. With the Lattice deformer, you only need to manipulate a few points to achieve smooth deformations.

When modeling from a polygon primitive, you can take a facet and extrude it in order to create more details.

Creating a lattice 1 Select a piece of geometry while in object mode.

2 Select Create Deformer>Lattice to create a lattice around your object with the default settings.

Use Extrude Face to make a simple polygonal house 1 Create a primitive polygonal cube.

2 Switch to component mode and enable Face selection mask.

3 Modify the Division settings to suit your geometry.

3 Select the top face and select Edit Mesh > Extrude.

4 Select the points on the lattice box by going into component mode or right clicking on the lattice and select Lattice Point from the context menu.

4 Use the manipulators to scale and move the new face into a triangular roof.

5 Move the points around and observe how the geometry reacts.

5 Repeat to create the chimney for the house.

Notice that each extrusion saves its construction history in the Channel Box. You can modify it later if necessary.

6 Once you are done, delete the history to freeze the deformed object.

Delete History You can delete the construction history on geometry that no longer needs it.

Deleting history keeps your geometry light, your scenes easier to manage, and your file sizes smaller.

Deleting the history on the selected objects 1 Objects with construction history selected, select Edit > Delete By Type > History.

2 To delete the history for the entire scene, select Edit > Delete All By Type > History.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Basic Topics Components

Non-linear Deformers

Components in Maya are used to tweak, deform and texture a surface. Each component can be accessed from within component mode using the appropriate selection mask.

Note that the components differ depending on the type of geometry, but surfaces have similar component types.

There are several types of deformers that will create an organic feel to your models.

Working with components 1 In object mode, select a piece of geometry.

2 Use the component mode button or the F8 hotkey to go into component mode.

3 Enable the Points selection mask.

4 You can now select that type of component on your surface.

5 To select another type of component, turn on its selection mask.

Create non-linear deformers 1 Select the object(s) you want to deform.

2 Select Create Deformer > Nonlinear>Sine.

3 Select Create Deformer > Nonlinear>Twist.

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Selecting a deformer’s handle causes its attributes to be displayed in the Channel Box. You can tweak these values to change how the deformer influences the geometry.

5 When you are done, delete the history to freeze the deformed objects.

Deleting the handles will reset the geometry to its original state.

6 Right click on the selection mask buttons to enable or disable specific components.

Bevel Text

Revolve

You don’t have to model each individual letter to have text in your scene. Maya gives you the ability to easily create geometry using the fonts on your computer.

Another way to create objects in Maya is to start from a curve and revolve it around an axis. This can produce objects such as glasses, pots, wheels and other cylinders.

Create 3D text 1 Select Create > Text > o.

2

Enter your desired text in the Text field and select a font using the drop down arrow. For this example, set the Type to Curves. Click on Create.

3 Select the curve for one letter, then select Surface > Bevel Plus > o.

Creating a wine glass 1

Click on Create > CV Curve Tool and draw a profile curve in the side view of the glass. Even if the profile is not perfect, you will be able to tweak the shape using construction history.

2 Select Surface > Revolve-o.

3 Set the Axis Preset to Y and click Revolve.

4 Select a bevel style and click the Bevel button.

5 The construction history lets you modify the results in the Channel Box.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Advanced Topics Booleans

Stitch

A Boolean operation is applied to two pieces of intersecting geometry. The type of operation specifies which parts of the objects you want to keep: Union, Difference or Interaction. Polygonal Booleans create the resulting geometry, and NURBS Booleans simply trim the surfaces to achieve the new shape.

When modeling with NURBS surfaces, you often need to connect to edges together. The stitch tool lets you pick two isoparms and connect them. This technique is often used along with global stitch for advanced patch modeling.

Using polygonal Booleans 1 Create two pieces of polygonal geometry.

2 Move them in order to have them intersecting.

3 Select both meshes. Note that the order in which you select them affects the result.

4 Click on Mesh > Booleans > Union, Difference or Intersection. The new geometry is one polygonal mesh with construction history.

Stitching two NURBS surfaces 1 Create two NURBS cylinders.

2 Select Edit NURBS > Stitch > Stitch Edge Tool.

3

With the tool enabled, click on the first surface border to be connected. Notice that the tool shows a full yellow line when an isoparm is selected. A dotted line means that you have selected an isoparm but not necessarily the edge.

4 Click on the second isoparm to be connected. The tool will connect them together.

Curve on Surface

Mirror Geometry

A curve on surface is made by projecting a 3D curve onto a NURBS surface. It can be used with other operations such as Trim, Detach, or any operation such as Loft, Extrude, etc.

When creating symmetrical geometry, keep in mind that you only need to complete half of the model. You can then mirror the geometry across a plane to create the other half.

Creating a curve on Surface

Mirror half a body into a whole

1 Create a NURBS sphere.

1 Build half a rough human shape using polygons.

2 Create a text curve.

2 With the geometry selected, select Mesh Mirror Cut – o, and select the appropriate plane.

3 Select the sphere, then the curve, and select Edit NURBS>Project Curve on Surface – o.

3 Click on the Mirror Cut button. Notice a plane manipulator is surrounding your geometry.

4 Set Project Along to Active View. With this setting, the active viewport determines the axis of projection.

4 Translate the mirror plane to correctly mirror and cut your geometry.

5 Use the viewports as a guide for the curves projection, then make the most appropriate orthographic view active and click Project.

OR

6 Move the original curve or the curve on surface and watch how the geometry reacts.

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1 With the geometry selected click on Mesh > Mirror Geometry-o. Select the appropriate plane.

2 Click on the Mirror button. Notice that your geometry is mirrored and merged across the most distant point on the defined axis.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Modeling: Advanced Topics Polygon Normals

Make Live

Normals determine how the light reacts on a surface. Polygonal objects have normals that define if an edge is hard or smooth. Using these attributes, you can determine the look of your mesh by changing the way light affects it.

This snapping tool converts the selected surface to a Live surface. For NURBS surfaces, curves drawn on a Live Surface become curves on surface. All other creation tools automatically snap to the Live surface.

Customizing polygon normals

Make Live Snapping

1 Create two polygonal spheres.

2 With the first sphere selected, click on Normals.

1 Create any type of geometry, and click on the Make Live button.

The object is displayed as a green wireframe.

3 Click on Harden Edge.

2 Select Create > NURBS Primitives > Sphere.

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3

Select the second sphere and click on Soften Edge. Then the Apply button. Examine the differences between the two spheres.

5 Switch to component mode and select a face from the smooth sphere, then repeat step 3. Notice how only the selected face has hard edges.

With the Move Tool, click the middle of the manipulator and drag the sphere on your geometry. It should snap to the Live object’s surface.

4 To exit the Make Live mode, simply click on the Make Live button again.

6 Experiment making different components hard/soft, such as edges or CVs.

Geometry Conversion

Smooth Proxy

You can convert geometry to several other types of objects in Maya. This allows you to work with your preferred type of surface and then convert it to another type of geometry appropriate for your project. For example, some pipelines will require every object to be polygons.

A nice way to create polygon models is to use the Smooth Proxy technique.

You work with a simple model hat automatically controls and updates the appearance of a smooth model.

Convert a sphere to all surface types 1 Create a polygonal sphere and try the following: Modify>Convert>Polygons to Subdiv Modify>Convert>Subdiv to NURBS Modify>Convert>NURBS to Polygons Converting Paint Effects Geometry 1 Draw a tree using Paint Effects 2

Select Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to Polygons. Notice that each conversion retains construction history so you can change things such as the resolution and accuracy.

3 Delete the history when you are done converting your objects.

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Create a model using Smooth Proxy 1 Create a polygonal cube.

2

Select the cube and choose Proxy > SubDiv Proxy-o. Examine the options and press the Smooth button to accept the default settings. Notice the smooth model that is created and how the original cube is now semi-transparent.

3 Extrude, move, scale, delete and/or split components on the original cube to model the smoother geometry.

4 Delete the history when you are done.

5 Repeat steps 2 and 4, but enable mirroring in the Smooth Proxy Options window.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Common Windows and Editors Graph Editor

Trax Editor

The Graph Editor is an animator’s best friend. Whether you keyframe an object or a skeleton, Set Driven Keys, or create expressions, you can see the resulting curves in this editor. Graphically representing an animation makes it easier to view interpolations and make timing corrections.

When you create character sets, you can create clips and poses from their animation. Clips and poses can then be assembled, blended, cycled, split and merged in order to create a totally different animation. Here, you can also add sound to your scene.

Channel Control

Dope Sheet

You can view keyframes without their curves in the Dope Sheet window. This makes it very easy to add, delete, or change the timing of keys in your animation.

To modify and animate only specific attributes, the Channel Control window allows you to lock and/or set attributes as non-keyable.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Common Windows and Editors Set Driven Key

With the Set Driven Key window, you can create a relationship between attributes on one or several objects. For example, a driven key on a custom attribute on a hand called “IndexCurl” whose value goes up from 0 to 10. At 0, the finger is straight, and the finger’s Rotation X increases as “IndexCurl” reaches 10.

Blend Shape

Connection Editor

The Connection Editor lets you connect attributes on an object to other attributes on itself or to a different object. For example, you could connect a car’s translation in X to the rotation of its wheels in Z. Connections are displayed in the Hypergraph.

Expression Editor

When deforming geometry with Blend Shapes, the Blend Shape window acts like a mixing device. Using the sliders to keyframe your animation makes it easy to achieve the desired shapes.

With knowledge of MEL scripting, the Expression Editor makes it possible to animate objects without any keyframes. Mathematical expressions do all the work here.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Basic Topics Keyframing

Constraints

When you need to move objects, animate characters, or control dynamics, you will inevitably use keyframing. Keyframes are the essence of animation and are set over time, which can then be played.

Setting keyframes to an object

Constraints are often used in 3D because they automate various details such as constraining a hat to a head, or aiming eyes at a ball. You can also have multiple source objects and adjust the constraint weight. For example, an apple on a table picked up by a character’s hand would be constrained to both the table and the hand.

1 Create any type of primitive object.

Create a constraint

2 Make sure the Time Slider is set to frame 1.

1 First, select the source object(s) to which the target object will be constrained.

3 Place the object in it’s initial position, then select Animate > SetKey. You can also press the s hotkey.

2 Shift-select the target object.

4 Move the Time Slider a couple of frames forward. Keep in mind that depending on your animation preferences, one second could be 24 frames or 30 frames, etc.

5 Move the object to its final position and press s again.

3 Select the option box of the desired constraint, such as Constrain>Point-o.

4 Check Maintain Offset if you want the object to preserve the offset from its pivot to the source. Uncheck it you want the object moved to the source pivot.

6 Press the Rewind button, then the Play button. You should see your object move over time.

Add Attribute

Set Driven Key

A very interesting feature in Maya is the ability to add attributes to nodes. These new attributes can then control other attributes in your scene or be custom values for expressions. For example, you could connect a float attribute called “Open Door” to a door’s rotation in Y.

Another way to create animation is to use driven keys, which let you use a single attribute to control others for animation. For example, as a car gets closer to a garage door, the door translates and rotates automatically to let the car in.

Add an attribute to an object

Set up a driven key 1 Create a car and a garage door from two cubes. Rename them appropriately.

1 First, select the object(s) to receive a custom attribute.

2 Place the car in front of the closed door. This is the initial position.

2 Select Modify > Add Attribute.

3 Select Animate > Set Driven Key>Set…

3 Under the New tab, give a name to your custom attribute.

4 Select the car and click Load Driver.

4 Check the Make Attribute Keyable box so that it will appear in the Channel Box.

5 Highlight the appropriate translation axis on the list.

5 Make sure to select an appropriate Data Type.

6 Select the door and click Load Driven.

6 If that attribute should have minimum or maximum values, set them in the Numeric Attribute Properties section.

7 Enable all the door’s translation and rotation attributes.

7 Press the OK button.

8 Press the Key button to set a driven key on the door and car in the initial position.

8 The custom attribute appears in the Channel Box, and also under the Extra Attributes section in the Attribute Editor.

9 Move the car forward until it is under the garage door.

10 Select the door, move it up, and rotate it to be fully open.

11 Press the Key button to set the final position.

12 Select the car and move it away from and into the garage. Watch the door move.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Basic Topics IK and Pole Vector

Blend Shapes

Inverse kinematics allows you to place the effector and let Maya do the calculation to rotate the bones to reach that point. In order to control the solution’s bending plane, there is a special type of constraint made especially for IK handles called a Pole Vector constraint. This constraint allows an object to determine the Pole Vector of an IK handle and can be animated at will.

When deforming your model with Blend Shapes, you must mix different shapes together and set keyframes. There are two main ways to achieve this: using the Channel Box or the Blend Shape window.

Creating an IK handle and a Pole Vector constraint

1 Select an object that has a Blend Shape deformer.

The deformer appears in the Input section of the Channel Box.

1 Create a series of bones representing a bent arm.

2 Select Skeleton > IK Handle Tool.

3 Select the root joint, then Shift-select the end joint. The IK handle should be created automatically. Try moving it around.

4 Create any object to be used as a Pole Vector object.

Keyframe Blend Shapes

2 You can select a shape attribute and MMB-drag in the viewport to change its value interactively.

3 Press s to set a keyframe on every attribute or right click on an attribute and choose Key Selected.

4 Select Window > Animation Editors > Blend Shape…

5 Adjust the sliders to change the attribute values. Notice how it is easier to animate from this window since everything is just one click away.

5 Select the Pole Vector object, then Shift–select the IK handle, and choose Constrain > Pole Vector. Try moving the Pole Vector object around.

Ghosting

Mirror Joints

A graphical way to evaluate an animation is to use animation ghosting. Doing so will create instances of the ghosted object before and after the current frame. You can then see frame-by-frame how your object moves over time.

When you create a skeleton, you will notice that it often needs to be symmetrical.

Instead of duplicating all the bones from one side to the other, Maya has an easy command to mirror the bones across an axis.

Ghosting an object

Mirror sections of a skeleton

1 Select the animated object to be ghosted.

As long as the object moves, you will see an immediate result.

1 Create a biped skeleton with only one arm an done leg.

2 Select Animate > Ghost Selected –o.

3 Select Skeleton > Mirror Joint- o, and select the appropriate mirror plane.

3 If you want to set the ghosting preferences manually, change the Type of Ghosting setting.

4 If your bone names contain, for example “left” or “right”, there is an option to automatically replace them upon mirroring.

4 Click the Ghost button.

5 Press Mirror to see a second arm appear on the opposite side of the skeleton.

2 Select the arm bone.

5 Playback your animation and observe the ghosts following your animated object.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Advanced Topics Skinning

Bake Simulation

When skinning first appeared, digital characters drastically improved their look.

Skinning is the deformation of geometry based on underlying animated bones.

Smooth Bind an arm

You have the ability to have keyframes on an object instead of constraints, expressions and/or dynamics. Bake Simulation will set a keyframe every n frames on the desired object’s attributes, replacing the input connections with animation curves.

1 Model an arm from a NURBS cylinder.

Baking an animation

2 Select Skeleton > Joint Tool and create three joints inside the arm geometry.

1 Assign an object to a motion path.

3 Select the root joint, then Shift-select the arm.

4 Select Skin > Bind Skin > Smooth Bind-o.

5 Make sure the Bind to option is set to Complete Skeleton and leave the other options as default values.

6 Click Bind Skin.

7 Rotate the elbow joint to see the result.

2 Select the object to be baked.

3 Select Edit > keys > Bake Simulation-o.

4 Select the From Channel Box option and highlight the desired attributes in the Channel Box. Set the Sample by number to define how often keys are set.

5 Click on the Bake button. Maya will play through the animation and bake the results.

6 The object’s animation is now baked for the specified attributes. Delete the motion path and playback the scene to confirm animation curves were created properly.

8 Adjust the weights with the Paint Skin Weights Tool.

Characters

Mirror Weighting

Once a character rig is finished, you can create a character set and subcharacter sets for it. A character set is a group of attributes controlling the character’s animation. For example, a character set for a biped would contain all the translation and rotation attributes of the nodes intended for animation.

A subscharacter can group parts of the character’s attributes, such as the arms or legs. When animating a character, all the defined attributes in the set are also keyed.

Since characters are often symmetrical and editing weights can be a tedious job, mirror weighting is an artist’s best friend. When editing the weights of your geometry, only do one half and then mirror the weight to the other side.

Create a character set

2 Before mirroring weights, make sure you select Skeleton>Assume Preferred Angle.

1 Select all the animated nodes to be added to the character set.

2 Select Character > Create Character Set-o.

3 Type a name for the character and select the appropriate options.

4 Click on the Create Character Set button.

5 If you want to add or remove attributes on the character set, simply select the object(s) and their attributes in the Channel Box and choose Character > Add to Character Set or Remove from Character Set.

Mirror weights 1 Once your character is bound, spend some time bending joints and editing weights. Use the Skin > Edit Smooth Skin > Paint Skin Weights Tool-o

3 Select the geometry whose skin is to be mirrored.

4 Select Skin > Edit Smooth Skin > Mirror Skin Weights-o.

5 Make sure to mirror across the correct plane and from the completed side to the other.

6 Click the Mirror button.

7 Try bending your character to test the weights.

6 Make sure the character is selected in the Current Character Set field in the main interface.

7 Start animating. Keys will be set on the entire character set.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Animation: Advanced Topics Trax Clips

Motion Paths

When your character is part of a character set, you can make motion clips or poses of its animation. These clips and poses can then be inserted in the Trax Editor to create complex animation from simple clips.

A good way to animate objects automatically is to assign them to a motion path. A motion path is a curve that acts like a track where the object starts at one end and follows it to the other end over a specified period of time.

Using Trax

Create a motion path

1 When you have animation on your character nodes or character set, they can be made into a clip. First, select the nodes whose animation will go in the clip.

1 Create an airplane out of a cone primitive.

2 Select Animate > Create Clip-o.

3 Give a name to the new clip and leave the remaining options as default values.

4 Click on the Create Clip button. Notice the keyframes in the timeline are gone, but your animation is still moving the character.

5 Open the Trax Editor from Window > Animation Editor. If your character set doesn’t show up, select List > Load Selected Characters. To center the clip, press A to Frame All.

2 Draw a curve in 3D for the plane to follow.

3 Select the plane, then the curve, and choose Animate > Motion Paths > Attach to Motion Path-o.

4 Make sure to set up the front and up axes correctly. Check the Bank option if you want your plane to rotate sideways while turning.

5 Click Attach. Play your animation.

6 You can cycle, split and/or blend the clips as needed from this window.

7 You can also import and export your clips to and from a clip library.

Muscles

Expressions

Muscles can be achieved by combining several Maya deformation tools. Using these techniques, your characters can have a pretty realistic and organic feel.

Sometimes, it is much simpler to control attributes with an expression then keyframing them. For example, it is simpler to animate a click via an expression.

Creating a bicep.

Write a clock expression (not an accurate clock)

1 Once your character’s skin is bound to a skeleton, select the component points around the bicep area.

1 Create a clock with hour, minute and second hands.

2 Create a sculpt deformer by selecting Deform > Sculpt Deformer.

3 Scale and move the sculpt deformer so that the bicep area looks relaxed.

4 Parent the deformer and its origin to the shoulder joint.

5 Set a driven key on the arm in a relaxed position.

2 Open Window > Animation Editors > Expression Editor.

3 Write this expression in the Expression field: seconds.rotateZ = (frame / 30)*360; minutes.rotateZ = (frame / 1800) *360; hours.rotateZ = (frame / 108000) *360; 4 Click on the create button.

5 Press Play and watch the clock start ticking.

6 Bend the elbow, scale up the deformer, and set another driven key.

7 Rotate the elbow joint and see the results.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Common Windows and Editors Expression Editor

Hypergraph: Connections

When you need to review and modify a dynamic system, the Hypergraph can show you the dependency graph along with all the connections.

With knowledge of MEL scripting, the Expression Editor makes it possible to animate objects without any keyframes. Mathematical expressions do all the work here.

Dynamic Relationships

To control your simulations, the relationship between particles, fields, and objects is very important. You can easily make connections with the Dynamic Realtionships editor.

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Render View

Software particles can be rendered with all your other objects in software rendering. The Render view calculates the current frame and previews your scene’s final look.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Common Windows and Editors Attribute Editor

Hardware Renderer

Maya has two types of particles: software and hardware. Hardware particles can be rendered with your graphics card through the Hardware Render Buffer or with the Hardware Renderer.

The Attribute Editor is one of the most important editors when using Maya dynamics. With it, you can modify and fine-tune all of your particle effects and dynamics solutions.

Attribute Spread Sheet

The Attribute spread sheet lets you access and modify per component attributes, which would hardly be accessible otherwise.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Basic Topics Create Emitters

Emit From Object

Emitters are objects that generate moving or stationary dynamic particles while an animation plays. Emitters are useful for producing smoke, fire, fireworks, rain, and similar effects.

You can use a surface, curve, volume or even another particle as an emitter.

Note that you can also emit particles from the selected components.

Create a simple emitter

1 Create a NURBS sphere and a polygonal sphere.

1 Select Particles > Create Emitter > o 2 Name your emitter and review the settings.

3 Click on the Create button. An emitter should appear at the center of the world.

4 Select the emitter and review the options present in the Channel Box. Attributes available at creation and several new attributes can be modified and animated here.

5 Try changing the Emitter Type to Directional and set the Spread attribute.

Emit particles from a sphere

2

Select the two spheres and choose Particles > Emit from Object > o Doing so will create one emitter per object, but only one particle object.

3 Select an Omni type of emitter and click the Create button.

4 Play your scene. Note that particles are being emitted from the CVs, so there should be way more particles than the NURBS sphere. Also note that CVs on NURBS and curves are not directly on the surface.

5 Change the Emitter Type to Surface to have the particles emitted evenly over the surface.

Rigid Bodies A polygonal or NURBS surface can be converted to an unyielding dynamic shape.

Rigid bodies collide rather than pass through each other during animation. An Active Rigid Body reacts to dynamics fields, collisions, and constraints, but not to keys. A Passive Rigid Body can collide with Active Rigid Bodies, but is not affected by dynamics.

Create Fire Maya has built-in effects that make it easy for you to create complex animation effects such as smoke and fire. Each Maya effect offers many options and attributes for fine tuning the results.

Create active and passive rigid bodies 1 Create a floor using a cube and a ball using a sphere.

2 Select the ball and choose Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Active Rigid Body.

3 With the ball selected, create a Gravity field. Note if you press Play the ball falls through the floor.

Apply the fire effect

4 Select the floor and choose Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Passive Rigid Body.

1 Create three polygonal cylinders and place them like logs on a camp fire.

Note that the resolution of the objects will affect the size and amount of fire particles.

5 Rewind your scene and press Play again.

The ball now bounces on the floor.

2 Select one of the cylinders and choose Effects > Create Fire. Note that only one object at the time can be selected.

6 By selecting the rigid bodys object, you can review all the attributes controlling its dynamics. Adjust the Mass, Friction and Bounciness to explore how these attributes affect the simulation.

3 Repeat the previous step on the remaining two cylinders.

4 Press Play and render your scene.

5 Customize the fire’s behavior and look.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Basic Topics Particle Types

Fields

Maya has several particle types to choose from. There are two general types of particles, software and hardware. Software particles can be rendered with a normal renderer but take longer to evaluate. Hardware particles can be rendered through the Hardware Render Buffer or the Hardware Renderer and are very quick to evaluate.

To animate and control your particles for dynamic simulations, you need to influence them with fields. Fields are forces applied to the particle object, influencing each particle independently.

Changing particle types

1 Select the particle object(s) in your scene.

1 Create an emitter and play the scene to emit some particles. Note that the emitter and the particles are two different objects.

2 Select Fields > Gravity. The field handle will be at the center of the world.

2 Select the particles and open the Attribute Editor. Scroll to the Render Attributes section of the Particle Shape tab.

3 Change the Particle Render Type to MultiStreak.

Creating a gravity field

3 Review the attributes in the Channel Box. The Magnitude is set to 9.8, which mimics the earth’s gravity.

4 Click play and see the result.

5 Create new fields and change their attributes to see how they influence the particles.

4 Click on the Current Render Type button to show the attributes.

5 Change the attributes to explore their effect.

Rigid Body Constraints

Initial State

A rigid body constraint restricts the motion of rigid bodies to simulate the behaviors of real-world items such as pins, nails, barriers, hinges, and springs.

You can constrain rigid bodies to a point in your scene or to other rigid bodies.

If you create a constraint on an object, Maya automatically makes the object a rigid body.

Maya dynamics only begins simulating when you play your scene, but sometimes your scene requires the dynamics to start off a certain way. This is the Initial State, which can be saved for each or every dynamic element in your scene.

Create a nail or spring constraint

1 Create an emitter and emit some particles until you reach the desired starting position.

1 Create a sphere.

Set a particle object’s initial state

2 Select the particles.

2 Select Soft/Hard Rigid Bodies > Create Nail Constraint or Create Spring Constraint.

3 Select Solvers > Initial State > Set for Selected.

3 Translate the new constraint away from the sphere.

4 Rewind and notice that the particles are saved in their Initial State.

4 Select the sphere and assign a Gravity field to it.

5 Repeat the previous step if necessary.

5 Press play to simulate the dynamics.

6 If you have multiple dynamic elements in your scene, you can quickly set their Initial States by selecting Solvers > Initial State > Set for All Dynamic.

Create a hinge or pin constraint

7 If you do not want any more particles to be emitted, delete the emitter or set its Rate attribute to zero.

1 Create two spheres.

2 With the spheres selected, choose Soft/Hard Rigid Bodies > Create Pin Constraint or Create Hinge Constraint.

3 Translate the new constraint away from the spheres.

4 Select one sphere and assign a Gravity field to it.

5 Play the scene to simulate the dynamics.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Advanced Topics Make Collide

Springs

Particles can collide with geometry and have them bounce dynamically. Once the collision is set, it is possible to change the geometry’s dynamic attributes, such as Resilience and Friction.

You can add springs to a soft body’s particles to give the soft body internal structure and improve your deformation control. You can also add springs to regular particles to give them reactive, interconnected motion. The number of springs and their stiffness alters the effect of the springs.

Collide particles with geometry 1 Create an emitter and a plane.

2 Emit some particles, select them, then Shift select the plane.

3 Click Particles > Make Collide.

Using soft body springs 1 Create a soft body cube, a colliding floor, and a gravity field.

2 Select the soft body particles.

4 Press Play to simulate the dynamics.

The particles bounce off the geometry.

3

5 Select the plane and click on the geoConnector node in the Outputs section of the Channel Box.

4 If you playback your scene, the springs do not have a desirable behavior because they are not strong enough.

6 Change the Resilience and the Friction attributes and playback the scene to see the results.

Select Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Springs. This will create springs interconnecting the soft body particles.

5 Select the spring object and experiment with the attributes in the Channel Box. Note that the spring’s stiffness usually needs to be increased. You can also play with the floor’s geoConnector node to affect the dynamic calculation.

6 When you play your scene, the cube should keep its shape, like if it was made of jelly.

Goals

Cache

A Goal is an object that particles follow or move towards. You can use goals to give trailing particles a flowing motion that’s hard to generate with other animation techniques. The trailing particles move as if connected to the goal by invisible springs.

Caching stores dynamic simulations either to disk or to memory, enabling you to see the desired effect without waiting for playback computation. Also, caching results in more efficient renders, especially when using multi-processor batch rendering. Maya loads the particles from the disk cache instead of re-computing them. This avoids the particle “run-up” at the start of the rendering process.

Create a particle Goal 1 Select Particles > Particle Tool > o and enable the Sketch Particles checkbox and draw graffiti in your scene.

2 Create an emitter, emit some particles and select them.

3 Shift-select the sketched particle object.

Create a particle cache 1 Select Solvers > Create Particle Disk Cache > o 2 Set the cache options, then click the Create button. Maya will then play your scene, recording each frame into the particle cache.

3 Once this is done, you can now scrub in the timeline.

4 Save your scene before batch rendering to ensure Maya locates the cache file.

4 Select Particles > Goal.

5 Press Play and see the new particles being attracted to the graffiti particles.

6 Hide the original sketched particles.

7 Experiment with the Goal Smoothness, Goal Weight and Mass attributes.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Dynamics: Advanced Topics Solvers

Instancing

A solver gathers all the algorithms to provide the data required to simulate the details of physical motion. There are different kinds of solvers in Maya such as the rigid body, Maya cloth and IK solvers. In order to keep your scene light, you can create multiple solvers that simulate independent groups of objects instead of the entire scene.

A particle instancer will place an object instance at each particle position. Each instance can also be rotated independently in the direction it is moving. The instanced geometry can be animated, making it easy to simulate crowds.

Create a new solver

3 Select the particles and change their Lifespan Mode to Constant.

1 Create a first group of Active Rigid Body cubes and a Passive Rigid Body floor.

4 Select the arrow geometry and choose Particles > Instancer (Replacement) > o.

Your arrow geometry should appear in the Instanced Objects list.

2

When you are ready to create a second group of rigid bodies, select Solvers > Create Rigid Body Solver. Note that the Solvers > Current Rigid Solver is set to the newly created solver. All the new rigid bodies will be connected to that new solver.

Create an arrow swarm 1 Model a low-count polygon arrow pointing along the positive X axis.

2 Create a Directional emitter and assign a Gravity field to its freeze transforms.

5 Make sure the Particle Object to Instance is set to the particles you just created.

3 Create a second group of active rigid body cubes.

6 Click on the Create button. You should see instances of arrows at each particle position.

4 Select all of your active rigid bodies and create a gravity field.

7 Select the particle node and open its Attribute Editor.

5 When you play your scene, the two groups of rigid bodies will be evaluated separately. They do not influence each other.

8 Under the Instancer (Geometry Replacement) section, change the Aim Direction of the Rotation Options section to Velocity. That will point the arrow in the direction it is moving.

Note: In simple scenarios a better solution might be to use the Collision Layer attribute. If a Collision Layer is set to -1, every rigid body will collide with that object. For any other positive value, the rigid bodies won’t collide.

Soft Bodies

Hardware Renderer

You can recreate a geometric object as a flexible object called a soft body. You can use various animation techniques to make the soft body bend, ripple, and bulge like soft objects in nature. A soft body will bend and deform when influenced by a field or struck by a collision object.

Create a soft body sphere

The hardware renderer uses the power of your graphics card to render your images. It is generally much quicker to render using the hardware renderer, however, certain software rendering effects are unachievable when using this method. The hardware renderer is mainly used to render the hardware render type particles. Once you have rendered those particles out, they are usually composited back into the scene.

1 Create a sphere and a floor.

1 Create a particle emitter.

2 Select the sphere and choose Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body.

Particles will be created for all the points of the sphere.

2 Change your playback range to 1-500.

3 With the soft body particles selected, create a gravity field.

4 Select the particles again and Shift select the floor, then select Particles > Make Collide.

5 Play your animation.

6 Experiment with the geoConnector node of the floor and the attributes of the soft body particles.

3 Playback the scene. You should see ‘point’ particles emitted from the emitter.

4 Select the particles and in the Attribute Editor, select the particleShape1 tab.

This is where certain attributes for the selected particles are editted.

5 Scroll down to the Render Attributes section. Beside the Particle Render Type you should see a drop-down menu that currently reads ‘points’. This is the type of particle that you are currently using.

6

To change this, select the drop down menu. You will notice the last 3 particle render types have (s/w) beside their name. That indicates that only those 3 particle types can use the software rendering method. All the others need to use the hardware renderer.

7 To use the hardware renderer, select Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings.

8 Under Render Using, choose Maya Hardware.

9 The Common tab will allow you to set the frame range of your render, resolution, and how you would like to name your rendered images.

10 The Maya Hardware tab, allows you to add motion blur and adjust the shading properties of the particles in your scene.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Common Windows and Editors Render Settings

Render View

Rendering is what 3D software is all about. The Render view is a small window within the interface that allows you to quickly render individual frames or stills of your animation or current views. Renders are created when the software computes your scene’s geometry, textures, lighting, and dynamics into a final image. This editor also has Interactive Photorealistic Renderer (IPR). This allows you to see quick updates of any changes done to lighting, color, or textures in your scene.

The Render Settings window contains settings that affect the final out come of your render. This window also contains a dropdown menu(render Using) that allows the user to choose between one of the four different renderers: Maya Software, Maya Hardware, mental ray for Maya, and Vector Renderers.

UV Texture Editor

Attribute Spread Sheet

The UV Texture Editor lets you visually map and edit the UVs of a polygon mesh or subdivision.

The Attribute Spread Sheet displays all the attributes of a selected objects. It separates the attributes under headings and categories, which allows you to change certain items all at once. For example, you could turn of the Casts Shadow flag for a number of objects all at once.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Common Windows and Editors Hypershade

Hardware Render Buffer

The Hypershade is an editor that allows you to create, edit, and connect rendering nodes such as textures, materials and utilities to create more complex and interesting shading networks. This window displays each node as a swatch representing the characteristics of the node.

The Hardware Render Buffer is a precursor to the Maya Hardware Renderer.

It uses the power of your graphics card to render images. This type of render can be much faster than software rendering, but not all software features are available with this type of rendering. You can use the Hardware Render Buffer to preview animations (including wireframe renders), or to render hardware render type particles.

Paint Effect Canvas

You can use the Paint Effects to paint on a 2D or 3D canvas, creating stunning textures right in Maya. The painted textures can then be used in your scene or saved for use elsewhere, just like any other image file.

AUTODESK MAYA 2008 | REFERENCE GUIDE

Multilister

The Multilister is like a simplified alternative to using the Hypergraph. It displays and updates swatches as you modify them, but things like connections aren’t visible.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Basic Topics Create Material

UV Projection Mapping

Materials define surface properties of an object. The look of an object can vary from chalk to chrome, skin to plastic, or any other real-world or imaginary material.

Once a material is defined, you can then add textures, which inherit the surface properties of that material.

Even though Maya’s polygon primitives have basic UVs assigned to them, not all surfaces will. Maya provides several projection methods to add UVs to a poly object that doesn’t have any or edit current UVs.

Create materials 1 Create several NURBS primitives.

2 Open Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade...

3 From the Create Maya Node on the left side of the editor, MMB-drag a material type into the lower Work Area.

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To assign the new material to geometry, you can MMB-drag the material onto the geometry or select the geometry, then right click on the material and select Assign Material to Selection. Most materials will immediately update while in shaded mode.

5 Select the material and open its Attribute Editor in order to modify its look.

6 Click the Map button next to Color and map a texture.

Using projection mapping for a logo 1 Create a polygonal cylinder.

2 Assign a material to the cylinder.

3 Map the image of a logo onto the material’s Color attribute.

4 Press 6 on your keyboard to see the rough texture in the viewport. Notice the logo is not mapped correctly.

5 With the geometry selected, click on Create UVs > Cylinder Mapping.

6 Use the manipulator to place the logo.

7 Open the Attribute Editor for the image’s place2dtexture node.

8 Uncheck the Warp U and Wrap V options

7 Press 6 on the keyboard to see rough textures in the viewports.

Lighting

Reflections

Before rendering a 3D scene, you must add light sources. There are many options available to create the most accurate and realistic lighting such as Light Intensity, Color, Decay and Shadow Casting.

There are two kinds of reflections in Maya: real reflections, calculated from the objects in your scene, and fake reflections, images you map as reflections. Fake reflections are quicker to render and can have excellent results.

Create and edit lights 1 With some geometry in your scene, click on Create > Lights > Spot Light.

2 Position the new light in your scene. To place the light, select Panels > Look Through Selected. Select Panels > Perspective to go back to normal view.

3 Press 7 on your keyboard to see rough scene lighting. For accurate rendering, open Window > Rendering Editor > Render View... and select the Render button.

4 Open the spot light’s Attribute Editor.

5 Adjust the light attributes and render the scene to examine their effects.

Using the environment ball node 1 Create an object and assign a Phong material to it.

2 In the material’s Attribute Editor, click on the Map button for the Color attribute.

3 Scroll to the Environment Textures section in the Create Render Node window.

4 Click on the Env Ball button. The environment ball is now mapped on your object.

5 Click on the map button for the Image attribute of the envBall node and assign it a File texture.

6 Browse for an picture to use as an environment.

7 Since reflections do not show up in the viewports, you need to render your scene to see the result.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Basic Topics Render

Shading network

Use the hardware texture mode to get a good idea of texture placement and how an object is going to look in a render. However, to get a true representation, you must do an actual render.

A shading network is a collection of materials, textures, and utilities that determine how an object will look once that network is assigned. You can view an entire network in the Hypershade. The Hypershade allows you to see the nodes, how they are connected, and provides a simple interface that allows users to edit and create new networks.

Render your scene 1 With geometry in your scene, click on the Render View button or select Window > Rendering Editors > Render View...

Create an orange shading network 1 Create a NURBS sphere and rename it “orange”.

2 Render your scene. Note that if there are no lights in your scene, Maya will use default lighting.

2 Open Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade...

3 If you would like to move or scale the rendered image, use the same mouse control as you would in any viewport.

3 Create a Phong material and assign it to the sphere.

4 To save the current rendered image to disk, select File > Save Image.

4 Open the material’s Attribute Editor.

5 Click on the Map button for the Color attribute and then click on the Leather button under 3D texture. This will connect a Leather texture to your material’s color.

6 Tweak the Leather attributes to achieve yellow skin with darker spots.

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In the Work Area of the Hypershade, you should see your current shading network. MMB-drag the Leather texture onto the material again and map it onto the Specular attribute. Repeat once more and map it into the Bump Map attribute.

8 Render your scene and examine your shading network’s result.

3D paint tool

Render Settings

Sometimes, it is easier to paint directly on geometry than creating a texture in another program and mapping it to your geometry later. Maya allows you to pick up a paint brush, paint directly on geometry, and then save the newly created texture to disk, just like any other texture.

The Render Settings window controls many render attributes such as anti-aliasing, motion blur, and things like Final Gather or Global Illumination if you use mental ray for Maya. Fine-tuning these attributes will get the best images possible with the least amount of render time.

Painting on a sphere

Edit the Render Globals

1 Create a NURBS sphere.

1 With your current scene open, click on the Render Settings button or Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings...

2 With the sphere selected, choose Texturing > 3D Paint Tool > o.

3 Scroll down to the File Textures section and make sure the Attribute to paint is set to Color.

4 Click on the Assign/Edit Textures button to make the object paintable.

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2 Under the Common tab, set image options such as the name, resolution presets and channels.

3 Under the tab for the current renderer, set rendering options such as the Quality, Anti-aliasing, and Motion Blur.

Start painting with the default black brush.

Using Paint effects bushes 1 Click on the Get Brush button at the top of the 3D Paint Tool window.

2 Select a Paint Effects brush from the Visor.

3 Paint directly on the geometry with the selected brush.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Advanced Topics Special Rendering Effects

Image Planes

The Maya Software renderer and mental ray for Maya renderer contain options to calculate various real-world effects. Some of these are turned on by using the Rendered Settings window.

1 Open the Render Settings and select the Maya Software tab.

An image plane is a non-geometric plane that you map images or sequences to. A file is connected to the camera you’ve chosen. Use an image plane to map images to use as a background, or images and sequences to use as a reference for modeling.

2 Enable the Motion Blur checkbox.

Create an image plane

3 Choose whether you want full 3D blur or a simpler 2D blur and test render your scene. You should see a blur trailing behind animated objects.

1 In the desired view, select View > Camera Attribute Editor...

Enable Motion Blur in Maya Software renderer

Enable refractions and reflections in Maya Software renderer 1 Open Render Settings and select the Maya Software tab.

2 Enable the Raytracing checkbox and set the different Raytracing attributes.

3 Enable the Raytracing Refractions on the desired object material.

4 Test render your scene. You should see refracting and reflecting effects.

Enable Caustics and Global Illumination in mental ray for Maya 1 Open the Render Settings and select the mental ray tab. If the mental ray renderer is not available, make sure the plug-in Mayatomr.mll is loaded.

2 Enable the Caustics and Global Illumination checkboxes and set their attributes.

3 Enable the Raytracing Refractions on the desired object material.

4 Test render your scene. You should see light patterns on objects that have refractions and you should see that the light bounces off objects in the scene.

2 Under the Environment section, click on the Create Image Plane button.

The Attribute Editor will automatically update with the image plane node.

3 Click on the Browse button next to the Image Name attribute and choose a picture file.

4 Set the Placement options and modify the size, position and depth of the image plane.

5 When using a reference for modeling, assign image planes to the front and side Orthographic views.

Paint Effects With just a few strokes, you can create an entire forest, fully animated and textured.

Once you have satisfactory Paint Effects in your scene, you can convert them to polygons.

Using Paint effects

Enable Final Gather in mental ray for Maya

1 Open an empty scene and select Paint Effects > Paint Effects Tool o.

1 Open the Render Settings and select the mental ray tab.

2 Select Paint Effects > Get Brush to open the Visor to access the brush presets.

2 Enable the Final Gather checkbox and set the different attributes.

3 Double click on a brush to copy its settings to the current brush.

3 Add Irradiance on the desired object material.

4 Test render your scene. You should see the color of your object spill onto others.

Enable Image Base Lighting in mental ray for Maya 1 Open the Render Settings and select the mental ray tab.

2

Create an Image Base Lighting node and then choose an image to use to globally light your scene.

A High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) will create photorealistic lighting.

3

Test render your scene. No lights should be required and you should be able to see the HRD image in reflections.

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4 Draw strokes straight on the scene grid. You should see the Paint effects grow in the viewport. Only a representation of the actual result is drawn to preserve the interactive nature of the viewports.

5 Render your scene to get a closer look at the result.

6 If you need to convert strokes into polygons, select the stroke, then choose Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to Polygons. Note that construction history is retained.

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Maya 2008 Reference Guide Rendering: Advanced Topics PSD Textures

Hardware Renderer

Maya have the ability to create and use PSD files as texture. With a PSD file texture, you can decide which material attributes you need textures for and Maya will automatically create layer sets for each attribute, such as Color, Transparency, Incandescence, Bump, etc. You also have the option to export a UV snapshot of your geometry along with the PSD file.

The Hardware Render is especially used to render hardware particles. It offers more functionality than the Hardware Render Buffer and can also be faster to render with than a software renderer.

Create a PSD texture

Rendering particles

1 Create a NURBS sphere.

1 Create an emitter which emits MultiStreaks particles.

2 Assign a new shader by selecting Lighting/Shading > Assign New Material > Phong.

3 Select Texturing > Create PSD Network...

4 Give a name to your new PSD file and specify which attributes you want in that texture file. For instance, Color, Specular Color and Bump.

5 Click on the Create button. The PSD file has now been saved on disk and is part of a shading network connected to your sphere.

2 Select Render > Render Using > Maya Hardware.

3 Select Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings...

The Render Settings window will appear 4 Turn on Motion Blur option for motion blurred hardware render particles.

Light linking

Batch Render

In order to help fine tune the lighting of a scene, you can use light linking. By making a connection between a light and an object, you tell the light to illuminate only that object. All other objects are ignored. This is useful if a character needs to be lit differently than another object or background.

Batch rendering takes full advantage of your computer’s processor(s) and can be started from Maya or Command Line. This rendering technique is very efficient since no interface is required.

Setup light links

Launch a batch process from a command line.

1 Create two spotlights pointing at three NURBS sphere.

1 Make sure all your attributes are set in the Render Globals. Save the scene and exit Maya.

2 Set one light’s color to red and the other to blue. Notice that both lights affect all three spheres.

2 Open a shell, and navigate to the directory your scene is in. Depending on which renderer you’re using, you will use different commands.

3 Select Window > Relationship Editor > Light Linking > Light-Centric.

To fin out the flags to use with the chosen renderer, type: Render -help -r <renderer> Where <renderer> is: mr = mental ray for Maya

sw = Maya Software

hw = Maya Hardware

vr = Maya Vector Renderer

4 In the Relationship Editor, select one of the lights. You should see the different objects affected by that light highlighted on the right side of the editor.

5 Toggle the links to different objects and render the scene to see the results .

IPR (Interactive Photorealistic Renderer) This Renderer allows you to view immediate changes made to a scenes lighting, textures and shaders.

Using the IPR 1 Select Window > Rendering Editors > Render View.

2 Click on the IPR button. Maya will render your scene while holding objects, lights and shaders information in memory.

3 Select a region that you want Maya to update.

4 Open the Attribute editor for a shader and change its settings. Watch the IPR update your render automatically.

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