CGDD 4113 Final Review

Chapter 7: Maya Shading and Texturing

Maya topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• Shader Types• Shader Attributes• Texturing the Axe• Life, Love, Textures and Surfaces• UVs, oh, UVs!

2

Shader Types• Shader Types are

loosely defined by how they reflect light and highlights (specular)

• Lambert• Phong• Phong E• Blinn• Anisotropic• Layered Shader• Ramp Shader

3

Shader Attributes• Color• Transparency• Translucence• Ambient Color• Incandescence• Bump Map• Diffuse• Glow• Specular Color• Reflectivity• Reflected Color

4

Life, Love, Textures and Surfaces –Texturing the Red Wagon

• Creating shader networks and file textures

• Understanding the relationship between meshes and how their textures lay across them is important

• Use ramps to position colors and textures

5

The magic of UVs• UVs define the coordinate

space along a surface or mesh

• UVs must be laid out well for textures to be applied properly

• Projection nodes can place textures on objects with poor UVs

• The UV Editor allows you to manipulate and export UVs to be painted or aligned in Photoshop

6

Introducing Autodesk Maya 2015

Chapter 8: Introduction to Animation

Maya topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• Keyframe animation– Animating a ball

• Throwing an Axe– Path Animation

• Object Replacement• Setup for Animation• Animating a Catapult

8

Keyframing• Bouncing a ball is

the best introduction to animation concepts

• It’s usually best to begin with overall animation and timing keyframes, then finesse

• Creating a hierarchy to help isolate animation

• Editing Animation –Graph Editor

• Reading and Adjusting Animation Curves

9

Animating Along a Path

• Creating Text in Maya

• Objects can travel along a pre-defined path (a curve)

• Objects may also deform along their animation path

10

Introducing Autodesk Maya 2015

Chapter 9: More Animation!

Maya topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• Skeletons• Binding to Geometry• IK• Constraints• Set Driven Keys• Rigging• But wait, there’s more!

12

Skeletons and Kinematics• Skeletons

are a way to visualize pivots in a hierarchy

• FK and IK• Walk Cycle

Mechanics– Pose– Time– Refine– Check

13

Binding to Geometry• Drawing the

Skeleton into place

• Moving joints for proper placement in the model

• Smooth Bind• Interactive

Bind• Editing Binds

for better animation results

14

IK, ok?• IK is a way to solve

the motion of a skeletal rig

• IK Handles are positioned and animated which in turn pose and animate the skeleton

• IK Handles can keep your feet on the ground!

• IK Walk cycle is a little bit less traumatic than FK

• Character animation gets easier with tons of practice and attention!

15

Constraints• Constraints keep

objects in a specific relation to each other and are very useful for rigging and setup

• Point• Orient• Scale• Aim• Geometry and

Normal• Parent

16

Set Driven Keys• SDKs maintain

controls of object attributes through another object’s actions

• You can create complex movements of several parts of an object by assigning an SDK to run multiple joints or parts or even shader settings like color.

• What, did he say color?

17

Rigging• Automating

animation is a huge time saver

• Time spent in rigging is time saved in animation

• Complex systems can be animated based on the animation of a single object

• We create relationships between the mechanics of the locomotive so that the rotation of a single wheel drives everything else

18

Simple Character Rig• Controllers are animated,

not the IK handles or joints!

• Relationships and constraints are setup to connect the controllers to the appropriate parts of the rig.

• Node Editor can be handy to set exact relationships.

• Setting up a heel control.

19

Introducing Autodesk Maya 2015

Chapter 10: Maya Lighting

Maya topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• Basic Lighting Concepts• Maya Lights• Light Linking• The advancement of smoothie

technology in the past decade• Shadows• mental ray Lighting• mental ray Physical Sun and Sky• Special Lighting Effects

21

Lighting Concepts• You have to

learn how to see all over again

• Proper Exposure

• Three-Point Lighting Basics– Key Light– Fill Light– Rim Light

• Practical Lights

22

Maya Lights• Light Attributes

– Intensity– Emit

Specular/Diffuse

– Decay Rate• Types of Lights

– Ambient– Directional– Point– Spot– Area– Volume

23

Light Linking• Linking

Lights allow you to light some objects in the scene but not others

• Gives you greater control in your scene

24

Only the Shadow Knows

• Creating Shadows– Depth Map

serve most purposes and are relatively fast to render

– Raytraced Shadows are more accurate but more costly to render

– Soft shadows may be had using mental ray or raytracing

25

Light Effects• Volumetric effects

such as fog add atmosphere to your lights

• Lens Flare can heighten realism

• Shader Glow mimic glowing objects, but are Shader based and not light based

26