Course Outline Maya

Terminologies and basic concepts of computer graphics for animation production. Effective techniques for component level editing. Terminologies and basic concepts of computer graphics for animation production. Effective techniques for component level editing. Modeling of organic and non-organic hard surface objects using NURBS & polygon. Concepts and techniques of modeling humanoid characters using NURBS & polygon.

Construction and manipulation of UV maps of polygonal surfaces. Refinement of polygonal models and their UV maps. Setups and techniques of applying skeleton and deformers for modeling. Modeling techniques using motion paths, animation constraints and expressions. Modeling using Artisan brush tools of Maya Modeling using the paint scripts tool with basic Maya Embedded Language (MEL). Placement and combing of the fur and hair of characters.

Mastering the concepts and principles of animation. Animation using set driven key & animation constraint. Combinations of deformers for animation. Controlling the movements of camera & light sources for animation. Non-linear animation using Maya trax editor. Foundation of Maya expressions for procedural animation. Advanced techniques & tricks based on path animation.

Concepts of the node-based architecture of Maya. Illustration of the concepts with Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and Dependency Graph (DG).

Learning the setup techniques using skeleton and kinematics for animation. Rigid body dynamics and particle simulation for generating simple visual effects and natural phenomena.

Learning the procedures for building a network of shaders, textures and utility nodes for rendering of characters. Learning the concepts and practical workflow of producing digital special effects. Mastering the advanced techniques and tricks of using soft bodies, goal weights, springs and expressions for a wide range of applications. Synthesis of highly complex effects of fluid, fire, explosion and insect swarm under wide variations of configurations.

Theory and concept of UV map for texture mapping and various techniques for generating UV maps of polygonal objects. Manipulation of UV sets using Maya Texture UV Editor and the relevant tools. Placement and layering of 2D & 3D texture patterns. Maya Raytracing for reflections, refractions and shadows. Techniques and issues of Hardware rendering. Concepts, construction and controls of camera, digital lighting and shadows.