Learn Autodesk Maya from an award-winning insider
Best-selling author, visual effects supervisor, and technical educator Dariush Derakhshani brings you a newly-updated, step-by-step guide to the most popular and complex 3D application on the market, Autodesk Maya. Introducing Autodesk Maya 2015 includes straightforward lessons, real-world examples, detailed tutorials, and downloadable project files that get you modeling and animating your own digital models and scenes right away.
The book starts you with the latest CG concepts and production workflows, and then shows you how to create a solar system to help get you acquainted with the basic tool set in Maya. From there, the books helps you:
- Learn the Maya user interface, including menus and plug-ins
- Build simple animations and 3D images right away
- Explore polygons, modeling, and NEX tools
- Get started with HDRI lighting, rendering, dynamics, simulations, and effects
Whether you're new to 3D or migrating from another 3D application,
Introducing Autodesk Maya 2015 will kick-start your creativity and get you up and running with Maya. Author Derakhshani has worked on movies such as
The Fantastic Four and
Pan's Labyrinth, the South Park TV series, and numerous commercials and music videos.
THE PERFECT PRIMER ON MAYA 2015
Maya software is a top choice for 3D professionals creating the stunning characters and visual effects you see in today's films, games, commercials, and other animation. If you want to develop professional-level Maya and 3D skills, the new edition of this top-selling book is the best place to start.
The book builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it easy to absorb the basics and start building and animating your own digital models and scenes. Follow fun and challenging step-by-step lessons while you learn by doing using downloadable project files and support video tutorials to round out the experience.
- Learn CG and 3D core concepts and production workflows
- Get a fast, thorough lesson on the Maya user interface and its menus and plug-ins
- Build a simple animation of the planets in the solar system, right away
- Explore the basics of NURBS, polygons, modeling, and new NEX tools
- Create a decorative box, a steam locomotive, a starfish, a child's table lamp, and more
- Rig for animation and use nCloth to create cloth motion, such as a flag blowing in the wind
- Master HDRI lighting, mental ray rendering, dynamics, simulations, and effects
