Intro to Maya Workshop

By Brian J. Immel

Interface Navigation

Maya comes with some helpful movies that opens the first time you run Maya. They can also be found under.Help > Learning Movies.

Tools

1. Selection tool
2. Lasso tool
3. Move tool
4. Rotate tool
5. Scale tool
6. Manipulator tool
7. Special tools

 

Menu Sets

Animation, Modeling, Dynamics and Rendering

 

Common Keyboard Shortcuts

q	Selection tool	a	frame all in view	1	low quality display
w	move tool	f	focus in view (on selected object)	2	medium quality display
e	rotate tool	g	repeat last action	3	high quality display
r	scale tool	x	snap to grid	4	wireframe display
t	manipulator tool	c	snap to curve	5	display shaded
y	activate last tool	v	snap to point	6	view in textured mode
s	set keyframe all	p	parent	7	view in light mode
crtl-a	attribute editor	shift-p	unparent

z / ctrl-z	undo	spacebar (tap)	change views	Alt + Left Mouse Button (LMB)	tumble
shift-z	redo	spacebar (hold)	hot box	Alt + Middle Mouse Button (MMB)	track
insert key	toggle center pivot mode on/off			Alt + Right Mouse Button (RMB)	zoom

More keyboard shortcuts can be found at Windows > Setting/Preferences > Hotkeys > List All….

All keyboard shortcuts are case sensitive!

Channel Box

Displays information about the item you have selected. Shows areas of information: Transformers, Shapes, Inputs, etc. What is shown depends on what is selected.

Views Windows and Interface

Hotbox

1. Hold Spacebar down to get the Hotbox.
2. Advanced interface.
3. Customizable.

Panel Menus per window

Window presets in Maya.

Marking Menus (Right-click object)

Component Selection Types

What component editing options you have depends on the object.

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User Settings

Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences

1. Settings = Time NTSC (30 fps)
2. Files/Project settings = project default location
3. Timeline = Playback Speed depends. Play every frame for simulations, Real for animation. Set to Real.
4. Undo = Infinite. This will use more and more memory as your file grows

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Personalizing Your Interface

Shelf and Shelf Tabs

Editing Shelf Tabs

1. Place commonly used buttons in here by holding down Shift-Ctrl-Alt and click on the tool you want to appear in the Shelf from the drop down menus.
2. Move buttons around using the Middle Mouse Button (MMB).
3. Delete a button by dragging it to the trash can near the top right corner. Deleting a button does not delete that function from Maya permanently, just that shortcut button.

Adding/Removing interface components

1. Display > Heads up Display
2. Display > UI Elements > ?

MEL buttons

Every function completed in Maya can be echoed using a script. The Script Editor shows the MEL script of your last function.

• Complete a function, highlight the script in the Script Editor and MMB it to the Shelf.
• Go to the Shelf Editor and rename this button according to its function

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Basic Modeling Menu

NURBS: Curve based geometry (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines)

1. Understanding NURBS: NURBS objects can be thought of as a folded piece of paper.
2. Play with sweep of a ball in the Channel Box.
3. Play with vertices and “unwrap” a NURBS object using the Control Vertices.

Polygonal: Polygon based geometry

SubDivision: Polygonal based geometry with curve edges

Model a simple fish using NURBS

1. Create a NURBS sphere and rotate Z 90 using the Channel Box.

2. Make the spans 8.

3. In vertex component mode, select the front of the sphere and form the mouth.

4. Scale and translate the vertices until you get something like Figure 13.

5. Insert a few isoparms to help sculpt the lips.

5. Add two spheres for eyes (Figure 14).

6. Select the fish’s body and in the Channel Box, click on the line where it says nurbsSphere1 and give your fish a name. It’s a good idea to always name each item you create.

Finished fish model.

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Shaders for Beginners

Hypershade vs. Multilister

1. Hypershade can show the user one or more shader graph(s).
2. Hypershade has easy access to creating Materials, Textures and other shader related items in the library left of the Hypershade view windows
3. Multilister lists all shaders and textures in the scene.

Assigning shaders

In the Hypershade window (Window > Rendering Editors> Hypershade) create a new shader by middle-mouse dragging a blinn shader in the Create Materials > Surface list to the Work Area in the bottom right of the Hypershade window.

Using textures

1. Double click the blinn shader to open up the Attribute Editor.
2. Click the map button to assign textures to a particular attribute of the shader. Maps can be procedural (internal map information) or external file sources (TGAs, TIFFs, JPGs, image sequences, movie files, etc.).
3. Select a Ramp and edit it according to Figure 17.

Mapping NURBS vs. polygons

NURBS objects can receive maps automatically because they don’t need a projection assigned to them. A projection is how a 3D application applies the map to a surface. Think of a NURBS object as a piece of paper with the same face on either side.

Polygonal objects must be assigned a projection. There are several ways to assign mapping projections to a polygonal object.

3D Paint Tool

1. Open up the 3D Paint Tool by going to Rendering > Texturing > 3D Paint Tool Option box.
2. For more info on painting a 3D object within in Maya, refer to the help in the Painting > 3D Paint Tool > Painting Renderable Attributes on 3D Objects.

Create a Phong shader with another Ramp for the color map and edit the Ramp according to Figure and apply this new shader to the fish’s eyes.

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Simple Animation Techniques

Deformers

1. Animation > Deform.
2. Lattices
   • Also a create tool for sculpting models.
3. Non-linear deformers (Animation > Non-Linear Deformers):
   • Bend
   • Flare
   • Sine
   • Squash
   • Twist
   • Wave

Skeletons

1. Forward Kinematics
2. Inverse Kinematics

 

Setting keyframes

Timeline

• Animation Preferences Button
  • > Settings > Time = NTSC (30fps)
  • > Timeline > Playback Speed = Real-time (30 fps).

Animation Preferences Button

• Using the ‘s’ key, you can keyframe all the attributes of a selected object(s).

Channel box

• Select the fish and right-click the attributes in the Channel Box to see an attribute list of options.
• Select an attribute in the Channel Box and right-click on the selected attribute and select Key Selected.

AutoKey

Click the AutoKey option in the bottom right to activate (red).

Other animation options: animation paths, set-driven controllers and procedure inputs (MEL scripts, expressions, etc.)

Playback options: timeline, scrubbing with the playback head, and playblasts

Animation Editors: Graph Editor and Dope Sheet

1. Window > Animation Editors > Graph Editor.
2. Window > Animation Editors > Dope Sheet.

Setup and Animate the Fish

1. Select all the geometry and put it in a lattice 5x2x2 (Figure 26).
2. Keyframe the lattice –main motion.
3. Keyframe the lattice points for animation –secondary motion of tail.
   1. Right-click on the lattice, select the lattice points around the tail and keyframe a wiggling motion.
4. Keyframe the eyes –secondary motion.
5. Edit any stray keyframes using the Graph editor.

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Rendering

Render global settings

1. Render Current Frame will render the image according its location in the timeline.

2. IPR stands for Interactive Photo-realistic Render. Use this only when you want to update a render as you work on modifying shaders.

3. Eender Globals is where the user defines the render parameters. Here a few tips on setting up the fish animation for rendering:

• Image File Output

• File Name Prefix = fish
• Frame/Animation Ext = name.#.ext.
• Start Frame = 1
• End Frame = 90
• Frame Padding = 3
• Image Format = Targa (tga)

• Resolution
  • Width = 720
  • Height = 480
• Anti-aliasing Quality
  • Preset = Production Quality
• Motion Blur
  • Check Motion Blur box
  • Motion Blur Type = 2D

Saving playblasts

1. Rendering a playblast will render all frames that are currently available in the timeline. So if your animation is only 65 frames long, you may want to adjust the view of the timeline to reflect that otherwise you’ll be playblasting dead frames.

2. Right-click on the Timeline and go to Playblast Option box.

3. Select a compressor that will work for your needs.

4. Check Save to File.

5. Click Browse to give the animation a location to save other than the default location.

6. Hit Playblast.

7. Hit the esc key to interrupt the playblast

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