Aliasing
Artifacts in Maya: a Technical Overview
You will learn how to look for some of the causes
of aliasing then address these issues while
maintaining good aliasing and faster rendering
times.
Arm
Set-Up in Maya
When setting up a character's arm in Alias|Wavefront
Maya, people often overlook how things actually
work below the elbow
Arm
set-up with IK/FK
This tutorial outlines a technique which is
quite handy when setting up an arm. Very often
I see work where the movement/rotations
Basic
Steps for Using the Connection Editor
In this editor, you could make connection between
all components of Maya, you will learn to make
connection between two o more objects.
Benelux
MAYA Users Ring
Modeling the Figure by Peter Ratner; Completing
the Human Figure by Peter Ratner; The Structure
of the Head and Features
Building
Leg Skeletons in Maya Using Detached Foot
Several different techniques exist for creating
a controlled leg skeleton in Maya, and all of
the best ones address the issue of animating
the foot
Changing
Frame Rate Without Changing Keyframes
Let's say you start working on an animation
for video. After doing some work, you realize
you had left your Units-Time preference
Character
Modeling and Animation
The following collection of exercises explore
the process of creating and animating a character
in Alias Power Animator.
Completing
the Human Figure
A few relevant details could be modeled before
moving to the next level. Some of these are
hair, eyelashes and clothes.
Creating
a Cord Attached to Something on Each End
Start off by drawing the curve (Create -> CV
curve tool), snapping the cv's to the grid one
unit at a time along the
Creating
Comments for MEL buttons
One of Maya's outstanding cababilities is MEL
- Maya's scripting language. A very handy feature
that goes with it is the ability to cut
Creating
Softbodies in Character Animations
This lesson will demonstrate how to use softbodies
for character animation purposes. You will also
learn to use a lot of other tools and Maya
Creating
Text and Materials
This tutorial will give you a little insigt
into Maya, and will teach you how to create
text, make a material with a texture and assigning
it to the text
Data
Visualizer Tutorial
This is a quickie tutorial of Wavefront's Data
Visualizer. It is not meant to be a full, comprehensive
tutorial, but merely an aid
Dealing
with Surface Parameterization
If your somewhat new to texture mapping, you
should read up a little on parameterization
as it often causes a bit of confusion.
Display
Resolution or Film Gate
It's important to know where the edge of frame
is... but a bug and some unclear documentation
has caused some confusion for us. Look at
Expressing
Emotion
When animating emotion, a reliance on only facial
animation will have little substance if it is
not combined with the relevant posture of the
body.
Facial
and Head Modeling for Animation
The head on the left was modeled in PowerAnimator.
It was designed for animation. While there is
no right or wrong way to model a head,
How
to Animate a Polygonal Tree with Particle System
For the following example a polyganal tree generated
with Amap is use. The object is to use particle
system to manage the orientation of
How
to Animate Camera Cuts
When animating, you may want to be able to cut
between several cameras that look at your scene
from different points of view.
How
to Animate Texture Files
This lesson will demonstrate how to use a numbered
sequence of images as a texture map. There are
basically two methods to achieve
How
to Build a Head
This is a head I modelled in the spring of 1996.
The grid shows the UV paramaterization of the
NURBS surface. Follow the steps below if
How
to Build a Level Using File Referencing
In this lesson, you will learn how to build
a level using existing assets and referencing
them into your scene.
How
to Build a Polygonal Gear
In this lesson, you will learn how to build
a gear by starting with a polygonal cylinder
then pulling vertices
How
to Build a Spiral Staircase
In this lesson, you will learn how to build
a spiral staircase using polygon booleans and
a bend deformer.
How
to Combine Bump & Displacement Maps
In this lesson, you will learn how to combine
a displacement map and bump map to create a
brick texture. You will also learn how to use
the
How
to Create 3D Text from Vector Art
In this lesson you will learn how to create
3D text using curves imported from an EPS file.
How
to Create a Ball ENV Reflection Map
In Maya, reflections can be achieved in one
of two ways. You can either raytrace the scene
or you can map the reflected color
How
to Create a Double-sided Shader
In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a two-sided shading group where you have one
material node on one side and a different
How
to Create a Pumpkin Face
Let's create Jack, the devilish pumpkin! Start
with a new scene and create a NURBS sphere;
rename it Pumpkin.
How
to Create a Ghost Shader
In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a shading network that has a soft, fuzzy look.
You will be using the SamplerInfo utility nod
How
to Create a Hand Controller
In this tutorial you will learn how to make
controllers to better animate a hand. This method
can be use with any set of joints.
How
to Create a Light Gobo with Barn Doors
In this lesson, you will learn how to simulate
the shadow coming from a window with blinds
using a light gobo.
How
to Create a Moving Tentacle
Stage 1: Creating the Tentacle animation. Go
into the side view and create a curve. Rebuild
the curve with more CV's
How
to Create a Realistic Sky with the EnvSky Texture
The environment sky is a powerful procedural
texture that you can quickly and easily add
to your scene to give the appearance of a sky
overhead.
How
to Create a Realistic Shadow with EnvSky
In this lesson you will use your environment
sky texture from the last lesson and link a
directional light to the elevation and azimuth
that
How
to Create a Soft Spotlight
In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a spot light with soft lighting and shadows.
This will involve the setting of several light
attributes
How
to Create a Volume Filled Uniformly with Particles
What I`ll try to explain here is my solution
to fill a closed volume uniformly with particles.
How
to Create Bevel Text with Nurbs
Select the inside curve of the first O and go
again to the options of the bevel. Make sure
this time you change the Bevel Width has to
be to -0.1
How
to Create Mechanical Stairs
This tutorial is about creating a set of mechanical
stairs, like the ones in shopping centres, undergrounds,
and so on.
How
to Create Real Smoke using Software Render
Make a Nurbs Plane and Change plane scale to
4 in all axis. Add an emiter to it. Open the
attribute editor of the Plane and Change Emiter
Rate
How
to Create Realistic Glass
In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a glass shader that uses a samplerInfo node
and several blendColor nodes to add more realism
How
to Create Square Surfaces
In this lesson, you will build two surfaces
using the Square tool. You will learn how to
create a square surface using four boundary
How
to Make a Cartoon Shader
In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a cartoon shader. By combining several utility
nodes to remap a Blinn material node using
How
to Make a Chicken
I modeled this chicken over the course of a
couple of evenings. I needed a character that
would offset my last one, the Rabbit of the
Apocalypse.
How
to Make Natural Clouds
In this lesson you will learn how to create
fly-through, shadowable clouds. To achieve this
result, you will create a shading network
How
to Make Water Ripple
In this lesson you will learn how to create
ripples on water that appear to cross over and
float through each other.
How
to Model a FLEXO with Maya
This is a tutorial to create and make fully
operative, with Maya, a Flexo-type arm like
those used to hold lights.
How
to Prelight a Scene
In this lesson, you will use the PRELIGHT operation
to prelight a scene. This will store the lighting
and shadow information
How
to Set Up Raytraced Reflections and Refractions
In this lesson, you will learn how to set up
a scene for reflections and refractions. Both
of these effects require Raytracing
How
to Share Texture Nodes
In this lesson, you will learn how to use the
same ramp texture node to define the transparency,
specular color and bump maps.
How
to Show a Node Buried in the Hypergraph
In a complex scene, the display of nodes in
the hypergraph can become large, and it can
become difficult to find a specific node.
How
to Use Animated Sweep and Snapshot
In this lesson, you will learn how to use animated
snapshot and animated sweep to create a spiral
staircase.
How
to Use 'Center of Interest' with Depth of Field
So you've spent days setting up your scene,
models, animation, lights, and textures. You're
now ready to hit the render button
How
to Use Depth of Field
This tutorial will teach you how to use Depth
of Field in Maya to help add some realism of
your renderings and animations.
How
to Use Multi-texturing
In this lesson, you will learn how to use layered
textures as well as creating multiple UV sets.
How
to Use the "bevelCaps" MEL Script
In this lesson you will learn how to use the
bevelCaps.mel script. This script will add planar
surfaces to the top and bottom of the selected
How
to Use the Two Bone IK Solver
In this lesson, you will learn how to set-up
and use the two bone IK solver. This solver
is ideal in setting up characters for use in
a Real
How
to Work with NURBS Booleans
In this lesson you will learn how to create
shapes using NURBS booleans. A NURBS boolean
operation treats two or more surfaces like solids
Introduction
to Wavefront
This document outlines the use of the basic
features of Wavefront, a modeling, rendering,
and animation package from Wavefront
Jakes'
Alias Bible
Don't forget to hit reload to see what's new.
Any questions or additions? Please contact me,
Jake Morrison Care to check out the
Learning
to use SVE for Virtual Environments
This document is intended to help you begin
to use the tools available at Georgia Tech for
creating interactive, real-time virtual
Making
an Advanced Arm Skeleton
In this tutorial we'll tackle how to utilize
and combine particles and dynamics in a skeleton
setup.
Making
an Advanced Leg Skeleton
In this tutorial I tried to explain my solution
to make an easy to animate leg skeleton approach.
Mapping
objects in Maya using Alpha maps
A lot of people using Maya has been asking about
proper mapping for polygons and I find alpha
maps the most
Maya
4.0 Reference Guide
A complete Reference guide to Maya 4.0. Advanced
Align curves, manipulator tool and channel box
Cloth, creating cloth objects
Maya
Software Rendering: a Technical Overview
This document describes some of the technical
details of the Maya 1.0 Software Renderer. It
assumes some technical knowledge
MEL
Scripting in Maya
Scripting. The mere mention of it is enough
to make most 3D artists break out in a cold
sweat. But while any animators do their best
Modeling
a Cartoon Bird
Every project starts from sketches. I do lots
of skeches before starting modeling - it helps
to visualize
Modeling
a Head with Subdivision Emulation in Maya
This tutorial explores the process of modeling
a 3D character head in Maya Complete using subdivision
emulation. This technique is faster,
Modeling
a Human Ear
I'm doing this tutorial because there seems
to be a lack of ear tutorials on the web. At
least it seems that way to me.
Modeling
a Human Figure
The following instructions illustrate this method.
I have adapted this technique to modeling a
male body.
Modeling
a NURBS Head UPDATED
There are many approaches to modeling the
human head. Most of these methods were designed
to accomplish specific
Modeling
a Shampoo Bottle
I am gonna try to hold your hand as much as
possible, because that is the way I like it
You will get discouraged
Modeling
a Ship in Alias|Wavefront's Maya 2.0
One crucial thing to do before modeling is to
do research. I searched the web and found images
of cruise ships.
Model
an Alien in Maya
Thanks to a vast array of modelling tools, you
can create this fearsome intergalactic creature
in Maya by following our walkthrough...
Organic
Modeling and Animation in Maya Part 1
As a character designer and animator, I have
struggled for the past five years with software
which kept me from incorporating
Organic
Modeling and Animation in Maya Part 2
In this month's article I will be concentrating
on kinematic set-up and workflow for my character
Lanker, with whom I wanted
Organic
Modeling and Animation in Maya Part 3
Maya's toolset for high-res character deformation
and animation offers great precision, flexibility
and intuitiveness.
Particle
Runtime Rules
If you write runtime rules for particles, you
often will need to be aware of the dynamics
oversampling rate.
Putting
a Label on a Bottle
Please note that the modelling is very basic
and is only used here to support the shading.
It is very similar to the glass
Seamless
Texturing
I'm sure that some of you were confronted to
the Non-seamless texture maps in there every
day work in 3D.
Shader
transparency from image file alpha channel
We often create image files with an associated
alpha channel, then we want to use the rgb as
a color texture and the alpha
Text
Out of Polygons
Maya provides tools to build geometry out of
NURBS or polygons. I've noticed that which is
the better tool is sometimes
Texture
Resolution
A common question when new to texture mapping,
is what resolution should textures be? This
is assuming that you are going
Top
Ten Maya Tips and Tricks
First, a note about this list. It is not a list
of incredibly complex recipes for never-before-seen
effects.
Turn
auto exposure off for glows in animations
If you use shader glows or any of the optical
fx features, things will look great on your
test images, but when you render
Turning
Depth Map Auto Focus Off
When using depth map shadows, the map resolution
is very important to the quality of the shadow
Microsoft explorer 6.0 