Maya for 3D (x, y and z) graphics and animation
810:088 Topics in Computing: 3D Graphics in Maya - 9 MWF Fall 2008
Note: 810:088 and the MASI class - 810:022 -
2 MWF is part of
UNI CS dept Certificate in Computer
Applications program.
Spring 2009 810:023
Microcomputer Systems is also
part of the program. 15+9 = 24 classes will involve Flash and
Adobe After Effects.
The 810:023 class will have a strong graphics concepts and
multimedia emphasis.
... Student Final Projects - 22 submitted so far.
... Who will be the 23rd to be done?
-
Student Final Projects either rendered or screen
captures if the rendering lighting doesn't do justice. These are very
exciting, whatever original work or variations you are doing.
... By 10 p.m. Friday 12/19 (or by 5 p.m. Monday 12/22) ...
- Final Exam Study Guide is
FINISHED.
... At 10 a.m. Wednesday 12/17 is the final. ...
- The Curtain Rises (or CURTAINS draw back) on your
Last Project
The
Final Maya Assignment is open ended,
but there are lots of ideas here for a specific task you can do for your
final Maya assignment. It does NOT have to have curtains, but please
email me what you are doing to get permission to not include the animated,
swaying curtains if your project is better without them and challenging
enough without them.
Note about
last assignment, in case you do
not get your email.
- Bouncing Ball scenes.
Dariush Derakhshani book pages 314-323. We did this in the Friday, April
5th lab. Study these pages carefully and practice the skills again on
your own.
- Michael O'Rourke A
Cartoon Ball Squashing is the tutorial that I meant to show the video
for on Monday, December 1st. It will be covered in detail on Wednesday,
12/03/08.
User ID: mayatuts
Password: morourke
- Maya Dynamics: Michael O'Rourke RAIN
tutorial.
User ID: mayatuts
Password: morourke
See and hear also Raindrops
Keep Falling On My Head.
See a very cool scene involving bikes and bulls and romance.
The song is part of the soundtrack to
the movie Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
-
Take-home QUIZ for Wednesday 12/03: Duplicating Curtains question, plus
review/preview of this weeks class. Last assignment is not yet ready, but
swaying, animated curtains will be part of it.
VIP note: Take-home Q U I Z:
Ghostbusters, Flash video and cue points,
TAKE-HOME QUIZ, 810:023, etc.
Email
note.
- Skeletons, Joints, Hierarchies: Friday Character
Rigging and Animation Studio IT 1 lab. 810:023 class and Adobe After
Effects information.
- The new web page for 810:023
Microcomputer
Systems class - 1 MWF Spring 2009 class. It will be a completely
different class from what it was the last few spring semesters.
Projects based, Adobe web and graphics and animation based class.
Includes Adobe After Effects as a major component.
- Spring 2009 Maya along with review of majors
and hometowns of Fall 2008 Maya students.
- Friday, Nov 14th - Swaying Curtains lab review: not ready yet...
- Nov 14th lab: Expression
Editor with if and
else and conditional expressions. Also, review of November 12 quiz
question on scaleX and scaleY and scaleZ expression, along with time.
How big is the Ball after the Time Slider reaches frame #120? If the
frame rate is 24 fps?
- Chapter Nine: Character Rigging and
Animation. Skeletons, Joints, Walk Cycles, Block Man example, Pick
Walking a Hierarchy in Maya. November 17th, 2008. Quiz will cover pages
360 to 367. Read and practice those pages and these examples for 11/19
quiz.
- Spring 2009 Maya and
810:023 Microcomputer
Systems class.
- Bouncing Ball is a Sine Wave
and Maya MEL Expressions. Will be covered during week of November 10th.
- Maya Dynamics menu set: Soft
and Rigid Bodies,
Particles, and Fields - Two 3dbuzz videos to watch to review
the Friday, November 7th StudioIT 1 lab class.
More information on Active and
Passive Bodies Dynamics with links to tutorials.
- 11/03/Monday: Review of MEL
Expressions and
interpolation between keyframes to calculate the attribute values.
Note: "Compare this to interpolation" Purple Text is a hotspot, a link
to the definition of interpolation.
- 11/03/Monday: Particle
Fountain Dynamics menu set assignment. Due Monday, November 10th.
- Particle Special Effects and the
particle emitter object. Dynamics menu set introduction.
- October 29th QUIZ Study Guide and
Monday, October 27th review of Set
Driven Key animation concepts.
- The Maya Sculpting egghead assignment #3 portfolio
of works by students in the
class can be seen here. 37 different JPEG files of Maya rendered scenes.
- Quiz #7 review: APS DR and Wedge Face and
the Polygonal HAND Width Divisions, Height Divisions and Depth
Divisions being as easy as X, Y, Z for W, H, D.
- Layers in Maya, the Outliner, Layer
Editor and Channel Box video tutorials. Watch, write and win some new
insights into Maya. Layers were introduced on Friday, October 17th in
lab.
QUIZ - October 22nd QUIZ on this Channels, Layers,
Outliner material.
- ASSIGNMENT: Egghead, SpongeBob, Mr.
Staypuft,
Pumpkin Carving
MAYA Assignment #3: Due date: Friday, October 24th.
- Preview of Friday, October 17th lab: Sculpting Pumpkins, Halloween
Masks, Cartoon Characters or Aliens from imaginary worlds. Also,
review of Ghostbusters
movie Scott, Jennifer, Dr. Peter Venkman studies on "KNOWING and
LEARNING ABILITY" scene. Can be somewhat shocking.
- Polygon Modeling Tutorial: Creating a
Helmet using Image Planes and
basic polygon mesh components like faces, edges, and vertices to
shape it to the jpeg image. Friday, 10/10 Maya lab. Please review
and read over this tutorial material by Monday 10/13. It went by fast in
the lab.
- Wine Glass problem with Extrude: Faces, Helmets,
Wine Glass modeling with Keep Faces Together. But how to
select the faces and why selection preferences are VIP.
Week #7 review.
- Tip about
building the 2nd lamp to
avoid some confusing problems
that occur when working with NURBS Cubes (if you want a CUBE for the
base of the 2nd lamp, use a Polygonal Cube, NOT a NURBS Cube).
- Maya student's LAMPS projects work:
Lamps Assignments with various views of the shadows and
the objects and the lamps.
See 9 student lamp projects as of 9:15 p.m. Thursday evening.
-
NEW: Baseball Bat and
tutorial
on
creating a NURBS Surface by Revolving a Profile Curve 360 degrees
around the X, Y or Z axis.
(Wednesday, Oct 8th, 11:15 a.m.)
- Examples Two Lamps, Baseball Bats, Wine
Glass and floor with one wall. See the TwoLamps1 thru TwoLamps7 JPEG
examples. The FridayNightLights examples have two walls, but only one
lamp.
- Setting Lighting for different Decay
Rates (Linear, Quadratic, Cubic) and
Intensity (Increase from default 1 to intensity 10 is typical with
Linear Decay Rate). Point Light and Spot Light Attribute Editor
snapshots.
- See
14 examples via
Javascript written slideshow application.
Lighting, Texturing, Lamps, Walls, Baseball bat, wine glass, suspended
cones containing Spot Lights.
Checkboard texture floor: Friday, October 3rd
example from lab. Point and Spot Lights, without any decay setting.
Uploaded to sunny.uni.edu account. Note the URL.
- Wednesday, October 1st: Lights, Lamps, Rendering,
Shadows project to light a scene that has a floor, two lamps, one wine
glass and one baseball bat.
PRACTICE EXERCISES for you to DO: Prerequisites and
resources:
- Read and reread and take notes/draw pictures on the following: Luxo Lamp and Maya
Lighting explanation and links. Consuming some INK will help you to thINK
and understand the concepts. Then the process of doing the project will
FLOW more smoothly and your ability with Maya will GROW more considerably.
If the INK don't flow, the understanding don't grow. BICTION is very
important during class and outside of class.
- Michael O'Rourke tutorial is linked to from this page:
Class #14 review includes the User ID and
Password needed to access the Luxo Lamp Hierarchy concepts tutorial.
- Video tutorial: Modeling
a wineglass using Polygons should be followed to learn the
techniques of Poly Mesh modeling in making your wineglass. You will
probably enjoy the Aussie accent of the teacher.
- Here are some examples of what the Rendered assignment might look
like:
- Further information about RENDERING.
(CHECK BACK ON WEDNESDAY EVENING - October 1st).
- How to publish examples of your RENDERED work as JPEG files
and upload the masterpiece to sunny.uni.edu so I and your friends your
give the URL too can look at itat:
http://www.uni.edu/yourUserIDatUNi/lampsBatWine1.jpg
http://www.uni.edu/yourUserIDatUNi/lampsBatWine2.jpg
http://www.uni.edu/yourUserIDatUNi/lampsBatWine3.jpg
to see the scene from several different Tumbled, Tracked and Dollied
perspectives and appreciate the colors and shadows and geometry.
- Wednesday,
September 24:
Snap to Grid, Snap to Curves (Hulls
and Edges), Snap to
Points (Vertices and CVs).
-
Friday, September 26th Luxo Lamp and Wine
Glass and Maya Lighting prelab preview and postlab review.
Two online tutorials.
VIP Note: NEW MATERIAL on Popup TOOLTIPS and on HULLS added on Friday
at 11:02 a.m.
Preview of lighting - 4 examples and
of rendering modified scenes. The scene has the Luxo LAMP with a Spot Light
and a Point Light above the Lamp to illuminate the lamp and the scene.
Posted 9:45 p.m. Friday evening as the
first Presidential debate finishes.
-
Quiz #3 and Trains Assignment In
Person grading of Maya Project.
SUBMIT INSTRUCTIONS:
Email your SCENE file as an
Attachment by Friday at 7 p.m.
--- SKIP THE IN PERSON GRADING until a later assignment/project.
-
VIP: Maya Project #1: Train Polygon modeling,
with a
tiny bit of NURBS work for the Boiler Front Cap.
-
Please, READ THE DIRECTIONS. You are to have 36 Cylinders instead of 20
Spheres for the BOLTS. That is a REQUIRED modification from the textbook.
- Here is the detailed
description of the assignment with the careful
description of the polygon primitive cylinders that you will use for the
BOLTS and how many BOLTS (36) you will have revolving around the BOILER
PLATES
and the BOILER FRONT CAP. THIRTY-SIX Polygon Cylinders, NOT Twenty
Spheres.
VIP: New review pages about
Selection Modes and Selection
Masks. H O C. The H and O and C icons are each HotSpots on an
ImageMap. The Alt text (like tooltip) seems to only work in Internet
Explorer and some versions of Mozilla Firefox. Note to Maya students:
This page serves a dual purpose: It teaches Photoshop and Dreamweaver
skills and workflow to 810:022 class.
Just in case you do not see the imagemap hotspots, here are the links to
separate H and O and C pages. The hotspots should be obvious to Maya
students, as they are the H and O and C icons on the Status Line screen
shot.
- H: Selection
by Hierarchy and Combinations. Groups and Parent/Child relationships
between objects.
- O: Selection by Object
Type.
- C: Selection by
Component Type. Faces and vertices and hulls, oh my.
- Class #10 review: Grouping versus
Parenting in MAYA. Using the Outliner and Hypergraph Hierarchy
windows. Wednesday, September 17th review. Added 1:05 p.m. Thursday
09/18.
- Practice MAYA often: SDK Set Driven Key quiz
two practice.
Try doing as a practice the SDK (Set
Driven Key) for QUIZ TWO. If you can get the Polygon Primitive Cone
to move up and down when the Polygon Primitive Cube moves rightward and
leftward, you will have a new level of grasp of SDK animation.
More about SDK in the context of the QUIZ
TWO, showing a screen snapshot of the working relationship between the
two Polygon Primitive objects.
- More information about the SDK quiz practice exercise and about how to
approach
learning MAYA in the context of the
TRAIN assignment mini-project. Can you P R I N T your name? Can you
write your name in cursive, i.e. sign your name is a higher level skill
than P R I N T your name? Cursive is harder to do, thus taught at a later
age AFTER you know and can PRINT all the letters in both UPPER CASE and
lower case. Unfortunately, cursive is often harder to read too!
-
VIP: Maya Project #1: Train Polygon modeling,
with a
tiny bit of NURBS work for the Boiler Front Cap.
QUIZ on Wednesday: First email note
assigning TRAIN
project and reviewing
what the acronym PC stands for (NURBS CVs review and Surfaces issues).
- CLASS #7: Review of the
Wednesday,
September 10th SDK (Set Driven Key) lab
class. Note: Today's further review of the HAND modeling techniques that
you very likely had trouble with should be reviewed again too.
See the links below and your textbook and
PRACTICE modeling the H A N D using Polygon Primitives and POKE FACE
and WEDGE FACE and edge and face selection masks, etc.
-
VIP: Review of Class #1, Monday, August 25th
and
preview of
and practice for Classes #2 and #3.
-
VIP: Review of Class #2, Wednesday, August
27th is DONE now, as of 2:34 p.m. Thursday.
- HW #1 due:
Assignment One is paper and pencil (paper
and pen) assignment involving the Solar System and chapter 3 of your
textbook, as well as review of classes #1 and #2 material.
- VIP: Review of
Class #3 - hands-on Sun,
Earth and Moon with orbits is DONE.
- StudioIT 1 computer lab schedule: ITT 134 is on 2nd floor. We will
have FIFTEEN labs in that classroom/PC laptop lab.
- Review of Class #4, September 3rd is done
as of 10:40 a.m. on 09/03, a new record. H O C is a big part of using
MAYA. Think about H O C.
-
Quiz Two email note.
Modeling the HAND using Polygon Primitives and Polygon menu set
commands:
Review of Class #5 and Class #6
and
study guide for Quiz Two (to be held at end of StudioIT lab on Wednesday,
September 10th). What are the 5 menu sets? Call the Applications Doctor,
i.e. call the APS DR if you have trouble remembering the name of each menu
set.
-
Maya has been used in the production of just about every major film
involving computer-generated effects since its release, including Star
Wars Episode I, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Stuart Little, etc.
-
Here is a link to the
top 100 grossing films of all time.
What percentage of these contain significant computer generated 3D
visual effects? How many movies from the TOP 20?
- Of course, you don't want to forget those commercials. Talking
lizards that sell car insurance. Super bowl commercials in 2008.
- Engineering and CAD (Computer Assisted Design) using Maya:
What percentage of things that you own began life as a virtual model?
Not to mention bridges, boats, tractors, combines, airplanes and
buildings!
-
Every episode of VeggieTales after King George and the Ducky was
animated using Maya.
It is used in combination with CorelDRAW to animate the cartoon South
Park.
-
"Alias Software's Maya is well known as a cutting edge 3D application.
Early in March of 2003, Alias Software won an Oscar for Scientific and
Technical Achievement for the development of Maya. Among its many
credits, Maya was used to create visual effects in several Oscar winning
and nominated movies, including The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,
Spider-Man, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. According to
one of my sources, Maya is used for up to half of the available 3D work
opportunities." Nathan Segal.
- The Maya Animation
pipeline has seven stages. You will gain
experience, develop skills and grasp the associated concepts associated
with
every one of these stages in the 9 a.m. MWF class as you
learn
the Maya 3D graphics software.
- Look at either the QuickTime
Fall 2007 showcase
or the YouTube
example Animation
from AnimationMentor school. The tool they use is Maya.
- Another fun animation of a
dancing alien. (You Tube)
- The
Maya Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is FREE
and it does NOT have any time limit of 30 days or 6 months.
- Maya still life examples: Characters and
Cars and random
ideas and examples and
more miscellaneous 3D
Maya creations.
- Excerpt from Maya
at a Glance Wiley book is a great introduction to Maya terms and user
interface.