Learning Autodesk Maya 2008: The Special Effects Handbook

Create mind-blowing special effects skills with Learning Autodesk Maya 2008 I The Special Effects Handbook. This completely updated official Maya guide focuses on dynamics and rendering, with in-depth tutorials covering lighting, texturing, and soft body and hard body dynamics. This exceptional, full-color guide uses LAIKA's award-winning short film Moongirl to guide you through clear step-by-step projects using the newest version of Maya. Learn how to create materials and textures, set up lights and cameras, work with shadows and raytracing, control renders, understand rendering for special effects and compositing, explore hardware and vector rendering, create caustics and global illumination effects, and much more. Check out the companion DVD for instructor-led overviews, artist interviews and scene files to get your creative juices flowing and get you started developing amazing visual effects.

Table of Contents

How to use this book.

Project 01.

Lesson 01. Materials.

Lesson 02. Textures.

Project 02.

Lesson 03. Lighting.

Lesson 04. Shadows.

Lesson 05. Cameras.

Lesson 06. Rayt5racing.

Project 03.

Lesson 07. Controlling Renders.

Lesson 08. Special Effects and Compositing.

Lesson 09. Hardware Rendering.

Lesson 10. Vector rendering.

Lesson 11. Maya Paint Effects.

Project 04.

Lesson 12. Caustics and Global Illumination.

Lesson 13. Final Gathering and HDRI.

Lesson 14. mental ray Shaders.

Project. 05.

Lesson 15. Maya Dynamics.

Lesson 16. Rigid Body Dynamics.

Lesson 17. Rigid Body Constraints.

Lesson 18. Rigid Body Optimization.

Project 06.

Lesson 19. Introduction to Particles.

Lesson 20. Rigid Bodies and Particles.

Lesson 21. Particle Collisions.

Lesson 22. Particle Expressions.

Lesson 23. The emit Function.

Lesson 24. Advanced Particle Expressions.

Lesson 25. Goals.

Lesson 26. Particle Instancing.

Project 07.

Lesson 27. Rendering Particles.

Lesson 28. Compositing.

Project 08.

Lesson 29. Maya Fluids.

Lesson 30. Maya Fur.

Lesson 31. Maya Hair.

Lesson 32. Maya nCloth.

Index.

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