In this course we will cover tools and techniques for curve-based facial rigging in Maya.

We'll take the Facial Action Coding System approach of controls muscles to mold facial expressions. Step by step, we'll construct a facial control rig that is robust, sufficient, and animator-friendly. We'll learn everything from how to deform a mesh by a curve's shape, to creating controls for those curves that will provide the animator with the functionality they need to create entertaining facial animations. We'll also learn how utilize nodes and expressions to automate certain components of our control rig. By the end of this course, you'll have the fund of knowledge you need to create your own curve-based control rigs that produce natural and appealing facial expressions.

1. Introduction and Project Overview

2. Driving the New Mesh of the Animation Character

3. Setting up the Joints of the Facial Rig

4. Adding Tools to a Custom Shelf

5. Building the Curves that will Deform the Face

6. Adding the Facial Curves as Influence Objects

7. Wrapping up the Initial Weight Pass of the Facial Curves

8. Refining the Weights of the Brows and Orbicularis Curves

9. Fine-tuning the Deformations of the Mouth Curves

10. Finalizing the Weights of the Buccinators

11. Controlling the Facial Curves with Clusters

12. Mirroring Influence Weights/Setting up Brow Controls

13. Creating Controls for the Orbicular Curves

14. Building Controls for the Buccinators and Zygomatic Curves

15. Starting on the Lip Controls

16. Adding Clusters to the Driver Curve for the Lips

17. Creating Groups for the Lip Controls

18. Attaching the Lip Controls to the Driver Curve with an Expression

19. Finishing up the Connections of the Lip Controls and Driver Curve

20. Connecting the Zygomatic Controls to their Driver Curves

21. Correcting the Weights Around the Corners of the Mouth

22. Rigging the Nose

23. Creating a Jaw Control/Blocking in the Weights of the Jaw Bone

24. Automating the Corner Lip Controls to Follow the Jaw

25. Wrapping up the Automation of the Corner Lip Controls

26. Setting up the Lower Lip Controls to Move with the Jaw

27. Finishing the Connections Between the Lower Lip Controls and the Jaw

28. Refining the Deformations of the Jaw

29. Shifting the Lower Lip Controls as the Jaw Rotates in the Y Axis

30. Closing in the Gaps Around the Lips When the Mouth Closes

31. Setting up the Lip Rolls

32. Tweaking the Facial Rig

33. Creating the Tongue Bones/Binding the Tongue

34. Rigging the Tongue Controls

35. Stretching the Tongue

36. Tying the Facial Controls to the Control Rig

37. Connecting the Blend Shape Controls to the Animation Controls

38. Finishing the Setup of the Animation Facial Controls

39. Cleaning up the Scene

40. Creating a Sub Character Set for the Facial Controls

41. Exploring a Technique for Correcting Deformations in the Face

In this series of lessons we will explore the various techniques and some helpful tips for setting up realistic lighting for an interior scene using V-Ray for Maya.

The ability to set up realistic lighting for an interior environment is a skill that is highly sought after in the CG industry. Problems to overcome, arise with every digital set. So we will be covering a lot of very common issues that you will want to be aware of such as using V-Ray lights to create physically-accurate light behavior, achieving realistic light bouncing in our scene, optimizing our render speed, using V-Ray materials to simulate a variety of surface types, using an external image-editing application to add some finishing touches to our renders, as well as many other tips, tricks, and techniques that will help you become a stronger, more effective rendering artist in V-Ray.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Establishing proper scene scale when rendering

3. Setting up the primary light source for our scene

4. Adding secondary illumination sources to our scene

5. Finishing the rough lighting of our scene

6. Adding V-Ray materials to the floor and ceiling

7. Refining the V-Ray floor material for our room

8. Applying V-Ray materials to the chair in our scene

9. Creating materials and textures for the pillows

10. Adding materials to the rug and artwork in our room

11. Adding materials to the table in our room

12. Creating materials for the oranges in our room

13. Rendering Maya Smooth Mesh objects in V-Ray

14. Adding translucency to the curtains

15. Making final quality adjustments to our render

16. Using Photoshop to add final touches to our render

In this series of lessons we will learn how Maya and RealFlow can be used together for our projects.

We will begin this course by learning how to import RealFlow meshes into Maya, and we will go step-by-step through the process of adding lights, materials and proper render settings to mimic appearance of realistic glass and liquid materials. From there, we will go deeper into the integration process, learning how to take geometry from Maya into RealFlow, using RealFlow's soft and rigid body dynamics to create moving objects, as well as understanding how scene scale plays a critical role in the behavior of our simulations. We will learn how to cache and re-use RealFlow simulation data and discuss many tips, tricks and techniques that you will be able to use in both the simulation and the rendering stages of your RealFlow projects.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Exporting meshes from RealFlow into Maya

3. Applying Maya materials to RealFlow meshes

4. Adjusting raytrace settings in Maya

5. Adding colored shadows to dielectric materials

6. Adding caustic patterns to glass materials

7. Making final adjustments to render quality

8. Importing Maya geometry into RealFlow

9. Creating soft and rigid body objects in RealFlow

10. Adjusting soft body results in RealFlow

11. Caching soft body simulations from RealFlow

12. Adding detailed splashes to our RealFlow project

13. Adding RealWave surfaces to our scene

14. Generating meshes around RealFlow particles

15. Importing RealFlow objects into Maya

16. Setting up materials for the lemon geometry

17. Adding a reflective environment to our Maya scene

18. Increasing reflection and refraction rays in Maya

19. Adding soft shadows to our Maya scene

20. Fixing reflection and refraction errors

21. Blending RealFlow meshes together in Maya

22. Adding secondary illumination to the scene

23. Fixing artifacts in Maya Architectural Material

24. Using the RealFlow Melt Shader in Maya

25. Generating the RealFlow project files for this course

In this series of lessons we're going to take a look at the basics of working with UVs in Maya.

UVs and UV layouts are important aspects of creating textures for our 3d models. They let us tell Maya how to apply the 2d images we create. Having a good uv layout can really make a difference in speeding up texture creation and optimizing your results.

1. Introduction and Project Overview

2. Visual Guide to UVs

3. Basics of UVs in Maya

4. Using Planar Mapping

5. Spherical and Cylindrical Mapping

6. Projecting UVs based on cameras

7. Using Automatic UV Mapping

8. Editing UV layouts

9. Using multiple UV projections

10. Unfolding and Relaxing UVs

11. Transferring UV layouts

12. Creating UV Snapshots

In this collection of lessons we will be exploring several of the V-Ray rendering nodes that can be found in Maya's Hypershade.

These Hypershade nodes can be used to create a variety of effects and many of these nodes provide us a number of additional controls over our V-Ray renders. For example, we will be taking an in-depth look at a number of nodes that can be used individually or used together to create a variety of surface material types that obey real-world laws of optics. We will also learn a variety of methods for adding volumetric effects to our renders, creating subsurface scattering materials, using geometry as a direct illumination source, along with many other lessons dedicated to the various V-Ray nodes found in Maya's Hypershade.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Overview of the V-Ray material in Maya – Part 1

3. Overview of the V-Ray material in Maya – Part 2

4. Creating 2-sided shaders in V-Ray

5. Using the V-Ray Light material in Maya

6. Utilizing the V-Ray Blend material in Maya

7. Using the V-Ray Fresnel texture in Maya

8. Working with the V-Ray Bump material in Maya

9. Understanding the V-Ray Material Wrapper in Maya

10. Using the V-Ray Subsurface Scattering material

11. Exploring the V-Ray SSS Single Scatter attributes

12. Using the V-Ray Dirt texture in Maya

13. Utilizing the V-Ray Edges texture in Maya

14. Using the V-Ray Fur Sampler node in Maya

15. Working with V-Ray Environment Fog

16. Rendering volumetric geometry with V-Ray

17. Rendering murky liquids in V-Ray for Maya

In this series of lessons we will be taking an introductory look at many of the rendering features found in V-Ray for Maya.

Using the V-Ray rendering engine, we can create highly realistic renders inside of Maya, but understanding how to properly use the rendering features of V-Ray is of critical importance. In these lessons we will explore many tools and concepts of V-Ray such as the various methods for simulating global illumination and understanding when each of these methods should be used. We will also look at the specialized V-Ray lights and how to properly use these lights in order to achieve a high degree of realism. We will also learn how to utilize the V-Ray Sun and Sky to create realistic outdoor lighting, we will learn how to utilize some of the specialized V-Ray materials, how to render our images into multiple passes, and exploring many additional rendering features found in V-Ray.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Understanding the V-Ray Image Sampler

3. Working with V-Ray lights in Maya

4. Exploring additional V-Ray light attributes

5. Using the V-Ray IES light in Maya

6. Using Maya geometry as a V-Ray light source

7. Overview of the VRayMtl in Maya

8. Refraction attributes of the VRayMt in Maya

9. Getting started with indirect illumination in V-Ray

10. Utilizing Photon Maps in V-Ray

11. Exploring Irradiance Maps in V-Ray

12. Understanding Light Cache in V-Ray

13. Saving and re-using indirect illumination data from V-Ray

14. Creating detailed V-Ray caustic patterns in Maya

15. Using the V-Ray 2-sided material in Maya

16. Working with V-Ray material overrides in Maya

17. Adding V-Ray attributes to Maya cameras

18. Using the V-Ray Sun and Sky features in Maya

19. V-Ray color mapping features in Maya

20. Creating image-based lighting with V-Ray for Maya

21. Rendering smooth geometry with V-Ray for Maya

22. Rendering V-Ray displacements in Maya

23. Using V-Ray Render Elements in Maya

* Constructing Effective Hierarchies

* Broken Hierarchy Systems

* Building Rig from Reference Skeleton

* Building an FK Spline System

* Incorporating MEL for Speed

* Custom Shelf for Tools

* Characters Sets

* Sub-Character Sets

* Set Driven Keys

* IK Solvers for Proper Limb Functionality

* Constraints

* Advanced Hip Control

* Painting Weights

* Connection Editor

* Reverse Lock System

* Muscle Deformation with Influence Objects

* Corrective Shapes for Mesh Deformations

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Setting up a Display Layer and a Custom Shelf

3. Wrapping up the Custom Shelf

4. Ironing out a solid naming convention

5. The use of Groups for scene cleanliness and organization

6. Beginning the construction of the skeleton

7. Mirroring the Joint Chain of the left Pelvic Limb

8. Building the Thoracic Limb Joint Chain

9. Creating the bones for the upper body

10. Examining the local Rotation Axis of the upper body Joint Chain

11. Working on the ears

12. Building the tail

13. Bringing the rig together- the Pelvis

14. Setting up the tail to help avoid Counter-Keying

15. Finishing Joint Connections and cleaning up the scene

16. Binding the horse

17. Exploring wire frame coloring

18. Using Maya's Paint Weights tool to edit influences

19. Painting weights around the Thorax

20. Working on completing the top of the Thoracic Limb

21. The effectiveness of Maya's Component Editor for modifying weights

22. Fixing the deformations of the left Fetlock

23. Weighting the Pastern

24. Finalizing the deformations of the Thoracic Limb

25. Bringing our attention to the left Pelvic Limb

26. Adjusting the Pelvic weights

27. Working on the hip bone

28. The Stifle Joint's influence

29. Focusing on the Tarsal Joint

30. Utilizing Corrective Blend Shapes

31. Using Set Driven Keys to tie attributes together

32. Weighting the Fetlock of the Pelvic Limb

33. Finishing up the left Pelvic Limb

34. Exploring Maya's time-saving Mirror Weights tool

35. Starting the process of building Control Objects

36. Setting up the Reverse Lock feature for the Phalangeal Joints

37. Working on the connections of the Reverse Lock Joints

38. Building the curves to control the horse's legs

39. Continuing the work of the control curves

40. Finishing the set up of the limb control curves

41. Adding the Carpal and Tarsal controls

42. Finishing the connections of the knee controls

43. The Thoracic shoulder controls

44. Creating the bones for the Spline FK back vertebrae

45. Connecting the Spline IK

46. Constraining clusters to the FK Driver Joint Chain

47. Starting the controls for the back vertebrae

48. Joining the upper body controls

49. Adding the Broken Hierarchy System

50. Setting up the hips

51. Commencing with the Neck rig

52. Constraining the neck clusters to the Neck Driver Chain

53. Setting up control curves for the Neck

54. Continuing the set up of the control curves for the Neck Joints

55. Adding custom attributes to control the base of the horse's neck

56. Troubleshooting techniques

57. Working on the head

58. The ear controls

59. Starting the tail rig

60. Working on control curves to drive the tail

61. Finishing the set up of the tail

62. Adding a visible Global Control

63. Cleaning up the display of the scene

64. Character and sub-character sets

65. A concept for the jaw control

66. Establishing influence objects for muscle jiggle

67. Using influence objects to get rid of unwanted deformations

68. Conclusion

In this collection of lessons we will learn about prop animation.

This course covers tools and techniques for animating props in Maya. We'll discuss methods that are animator-friendly for prop animation. We'll learn how to animate constrained objects, how to blend smoothly between our space-switches as we keyframe a constraint's weight, and we'll even explore at technique for switching between spaces with no offset. At the end of this course, you'll have the knowledge you need to overcome the challenges of prop animation.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. How to approach prop animation

3. A cleaner workflow for animating constrained objects

4. Rigging props for complex animation

5. Space-switching without the offset

In this series of lessons we'll focus on Working with Tables in InDesign. We'll begin by breaking down the structure of a table and learning how to navigate and select it's different parts. Next we'll learn how to create a table both from scratch as well as from data created in Microsoft word or excel. From there we'll learn about headers and footers then move on to the different types of content we can place into a table. We'll wrap things up by learning how to edit the structure of a table and how to control both the stroke and fill attributes for various parts of the table. After going through this course, you'll have a good understanding of how to build and customize tables in InDesign.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. InDesign table overview

3. Table creation basics

4. Importing tables into InDesign

5. Creating and managing headers and footers

6. Adding content to a table

7. Beginning to edit our table

8. Continuing to edit our table

9. Customizing stroke and fill attributes for our table

10. Fine tuning our table

Adding a New Camera to Reference Additional Images

Adding Anticipation to your Animations

Adding Right Click Render Option for maya Files in Windows

Adjusting particles using an array mapper in Maya

Animated Curve Extrusion in Maya

Animated Sweep Ribbon

Animating an objects s visibility in Maya

Animating objects along a trajectory in Maya

Animation Snapshot Trail

ASHLI Bump Mapping in Maya

ASHLI Shaders in Maya

Backface creasing with toon lines in Maya

Baking Topology to Targets

Baking vertex color data into your geometry

Binding multiple meshes to one skeleton in Maya

Breaking Tangents in Maya

Building a Soft Body Antenna in Maya

Color coding animation curves in Maya

Controlling Transfer Attributes with the Paint Weights Tool

Converting Linear Curves to Cubic Curves in Maya

Converting Surfaces in Maya

Creating a Glow Effect wiht UV Sets in Maya

Creating a Pelvic Limb Ring for a dog in Maya Part 1

Creating a Pelvic Limb Ring for a dog in Maya Part 2

Creating a Pelvic Limb Ring for a dog in Maya Part 3

Creating a Perfect Sphere for nCloth Simulations

Creating a proxy cage for a rigged model

Creating a slithering snake using a Singel Deformer in Maya

Creating a turntable animation in Maya

Creating Custom viewport Layouts in Maya

Creating New Topology by Projecting Curves in Maya

Creating particles at rigid body collisions

Creating Particles in Maya

Creating Surfaces by Lofting Curves in Maya

Delete Non Deformer History

Disconnecting Joints in Maya

Efficiently Working wiht Parenting in Maya

Extrude Faces and Edges Along Curves in Maya

Facking Rim Lighting with Materials

Finding hidden objects in Maya

Finding Overlpapping UVs with Shade UVs

Fixing texture distortion with Warp Image in Maya

Follow-through and Overlapping Animation

Full Body IK

Getting started with the ikSpringSolver

How to use the Align Tool in Maya

Inserting Joints in Maya

Interactive placement of lights in Maya

Interactive primitive creation in Maya

Interactive Primitive Subdividing in Maya

Layering animation in Maya

Maya Fur Kit Update - Using Maya Hair as curve attractors for fur

Modeling Air Tanks and Horses in Maya

Moving UVs Numerically in Maya

New selection features of Maya 2009

nParticles Interactions in Maya

Opening Newer Scene Files in Older Version of Maya

Painting Blend Shape Weights

Particle Collision Effects in Maya

Polygon Bridge Tool

Positioning objects along a curve in Maya

Preserving UVs in Maya 2009

Previewing Smothed Geometry in Maya

Ramp Tricks Coloring bump

Ramp Tricks Double-sided Shaders

Ramp Tricks Glow Control

Ramp Tricks Single Switch

Ramp Tricks Wireframe renders

Re-Attaching a head with Blendshapes to its body

Removing Joints in Maya

Removing nParticles in Maya

Renaming wiht fcheck in Maya

Rendering from the command prompt

Rendering Geometry that has Vertex Color data

Rendering Smooth mesh Previews in Maya

Rotating an Object s Pivot in Maya

Secondary foot controls for the Character Setup Kit

Selecting component loops in Maya 2009

Setting up a pond and wake system in Maya

Sketching particles in Maya

Smoth and Rigid Binding in Maya

Smoth Mesh Rendering in Maya

Split Edge Ring Tool

Splitting Polygons in Maya

Substitute Geometry

Surface Sampler

Template Channels in Maya

The Dos and Donts of Deleting Components

The Inserte Key tool versus the Add Key Tool in Maya

Toon Intersection Lines

Transfering UVs in Maya 2009

Transfering UVs using the Tansfer Attributes command in Maya

Understanding Maya s Reverse node

Understanding Squash and Stretch in Maya

Updates to the modeling menu set and creating custom nenus in Maya

Updates to the script editor and inline cell mathematics in Maya

Using Add Divisions in Maya

Using Append to Polygon Tool in Maya

Using Bake Simulation in Maya

Using Blendshapes as a modeling tool

Using Bookmarks in Maya

Using Bridge Edge Tool in Maya

Using Cut Faces Tool in Maya

Using Delete Edge - Vertex Tool in Maya

Using Depth Mapas as image plane

Using Detach Component Tool in Maya

Using Duplicate Face Tool in Maya

Using expressions to automate follow-through in Maya

Using Extract Tool in Maya

Using Extrude Tool in Maya

Using Extrude Vertex and Chamfer Vertex in Maya

Using Flow Path Objects in Maya

Using Geometry Caching in Maya

Using History to create geometric effects in Maya

Using Influence Objects in Maya

Using Insert Edge Loop Tool in Maya

Using IPR Rendering with Mental Ray in Maya

Using Keep Faces Together Tool in Maya

Using layered shaders in Maya

Using Level of Detail to automatically swap out geometry

Using Maya Condition node

Using Maya Soft selection feature

Using Mental Ray nodes in Layered shaders in Maya

Using Mirror Geometry Tool in Maya

Using Mothion Paths in Maya

Using Motion fields with fluids in Maya

Using Motion Trails in Maya

Using Muscle Shrinkwraper for modeling

Using non-linear deformers to create a candy cane

Using NURBS to Build a Flower Pot in Maya

Using Offset Edge Loop Tool in Maya

Using Offset Edge Loop tool to quickly add resolution

Using Poke Face in Maya

Using ramps to quiclky texturing multiple objects wiht a single shader

Using raytraced Shadows in Maya

Using Reverse Normals in Maya

Using Reverse Surface in MAya

Using Separate - Combine in Maya

Using the Annotate Node and Notes in Maya

Using the Artisan Toll in Maya

Using the Birail Tool in Maya

Using the Channel Box in Maya

Using the Cube primitve in Maya

Using the Graph Editor in Maya

Using the Heat Map in Maya 2009

Using the Input Box in Maya

Using the Merge Tool in Maya

Using the Merge Vertex Tool in Maya

Using the Move Skinned Joints Tool

Using the Scatter attribute in Maya

Using the Slide Edge Tool in Maya

Using the Smoth Skin Weights Tool in Maya

Using the Smoth UV Tool in Maya 2009

Using the Split Polygon Tool in Maya

Using the Spring Solver

Using the undoable Camera Settings

Using the UV Lattice and Unfold UV tools in Maya

Using the ViewCube in Maya

Using the virtual sliders with channel box in Maya

Using Transform Component in Maya

Using Transform Component tool to randomize geometry

Using UV Texture to select and modify multiple objects

Using Wedge Face in Maya

Using X-Ray Shading in MAya

Utilizing Maya Aim Constraint

Utilizing Maya Frame cache node

Utilizing Maya s PlusMinusAverage node

Utilizing Render Proxies in Maya

Working wiht Primitives - Polygons

Working with Containers in Maya

Working with Maya s Wire Deformer

Working with Primitives - NURBS

Working with Primitives - Subdivision Surfaces

Working with ramp and graph widgets in Maya

In this series of lessons, we'll focus on the concept design and storyboarding section of the 'Infiltrator' production pipeline.

We'll get started by learning how we can quickly generate several rough ideas for our character concept using simple silhouettes. From there, we'll choose our favorite silhouette and begin drawing the rough line work of our character. Once we've finished, we'll begin refining and cleaning up the line work to prepare it for color. Next, we'll learn one method of painting color values onto our character and blending them to create the illusion of a 3 dimensional image. Finally, we'll walk through the storyboarding of a short animated sequence for our character. After completing this course, you will have a good idea of how to create and develop a character for animation. You'll also understand how to go about storyboarding out an animated sequence for a character.

Lesson Outline (25 lessons)

1. Introduction and Project Overview

2. Idea generation through silhouettes

3. Pulling additional details out of select silhouettes

4. Rough line work: Basic proportions and positioning

5. Rough line work: Focusing on leg anatomy

6. Rough line work: Detailing the character's right legs

7. Rough line work: Detailing the character's arms and head

8. Rough line work: Detailing the character's left legs and torso

9. Refined line work: Neck and torso

10. Refined line work: Torso and neck

11. Refined line work: Upper right legs

12. Refined line work: Lower right legs

13. Refined line work: Arms

14. Refined line work: Left legs

15. Refined line work: Left legs and touch up

16. Color: Applying a quick range of values

17. Color: Beginning to blend values17. Color: Beginning to blend values

18. Color: Blending our character's right legs and arms

19. Color: Blending our character's left legs

20. Color: Blending our character's head and torso

21. Color: Adding highlights

22. Color: Finishing highlights and final touches

23. Storyboarding: Breaking down the sequence

24. Storyboarding: Beginning storyboard artwork

25. Storyboarding: Completing storyboard artwork

In this course we will cover the basics of working in BodyPaint 3D.

Creating believable texture maps is a huge part of creating great characters, props, and environments. BodyPaint 3D is fantastic tool for painting textures interactively on our models, while keeping a lot of the functionality that comes from working in a 2d image editing application. BodyPaint 3D is widely used in the industry and knowing how to use this powerful program will really help you work faster and smarter. In this course we will get a good jump start on working in BodyPaint 3D. We will go over the interface and talk about where everything's located. We will go through the process of setting up textures for our models, complete with multiple channels and layers. We'll cover painting concepts and tools including working with brushes and color. We'll also look at useful concepts like Projection Painting and using the Raybrush Render View to get a better idea of what your texture will look like as you paint. We'll also go over some of the ways you can integrate BodyPaint 3D with other applications like Photoshop, Maya, or 3DS Max. Once you are done, you will be able to jump in and start texturing your own models in BodyPaint 3D.

Lesson Outline (17 lessons)

01. Introduction and project overview

02. The BodyPaint 3D interface

03. Using the Paint Setup Wizard

04. UV Basics

05. Beginning the painting process

06. Painting Workflows

07. Working with texture files

08. Extracting data from external images

09. Using Projection Painting

10. Working with layers

11. Working with channels

12. Using the Raybrush Render View

13. Adjusting texture maps

14. Exploring other paint tools

15. Using BodyPaint 3D with Photoshop

16. Painting luminance

17. Using BodyPaint with other applications