Digital Effects Animation Using Maya V2.0 (Graphics Series) - Softcover

Ng, Kian Bee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1886801371 ISBN 13: 9781886801370

Publisher: Charles River Media, 1999

Synopsis

Creating realistic digital effects is a difficult task even for the professionals. But with the features and accessibility of powerful graphics software like Maya, creating fascinating, commercial-quality effects is now within the reach of many artists and animators. The theory, hands-on examples, and animations included in these pages demonstrate the power of Maya in action and show how to master it for your own animation productions. The detailed instructions and production-based animations teach the problem-solving skills and techniques needed to create stunning effects. Maya is one of the most complete, production-ready programs available, and its open architecture allows you to add functions easily. Maya is he main program used throughout the book, however, the theory and techniques are applicable to many other commercial 3D software programs. The text covers both the technical and aesthetic issues from problem solving to generating believable animations.

About this title

From the Author

From the author
When I was given the greenlight from Alias Wavefront and my publisher to write this book , it took me seven months to research, design, and complete the manuscripts (not the book yet). This is considerably longer than the norm. It is because I don't think the readers are interested to read another Maya manual and neither am I interested to just jump on the Maya bandwagon and start reproducing a book on Maya basics, which the software manual has very well covered.

When this book was written, I've in mind what I think an effects animator and technical director would need to know. I don't want to create a book that covers A-Z of a software application and provide nice little demos for illustrations. There are many books that serve that purpose. What I want to create is a book that I will also want to keep it for my reference. A book that provides emphasis to our young readers on the real issues of production animation.

Thus the emphasis on this book has been on producing commercial quality effects animation and developing the readers' problem solving skills. Although Maya is used throughout the book, several concepts and discussion can be applied to other software of your choice.

The book divides effects animation into 5 elements: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Dynamics. It first covers various theories and practices that are essential for an effects animator and technical director to comprehend. These topics include the basics of particle animation, procedural concepts, function curves, modeling, lighting, rendering, and compositing.

The second part of the book takes the readers through a series of carefully designed tutorials. Through the tutorials, the readers will, hopefully, not only acquire the knowledge of using Maya in creating production quality animation but also understand and develop his/her own problem solving skills. The tutorials cover include creating fire, water, splashes, dust, clouds, explosions, terrain, soft and rigid body dynamics, writing Maya plug-ins using C++, and developing a control system (similar to crowd control system) using entirely MEL.

I hope that you will find this approach of writing, and the content to be inspiring and useful. And hopefully this book will serve to be your future effects animation reference.

Edition details

• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1886801371
• ISBN 13: 9781886801370
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 568