Curriculum

Week One
Workspace
❑ Introduction to the Maya Interface
❑ Cartesian Coordinates and 3D space
❑ Project Management
❑ homework – Transformation Tools p.13

Modeling
❑ Geometric primitives as building blocks
❑ homework – Barn p. 26

Animation
❑ Setting keyframes
❑ Ball bounce
❑ homework – Create Project p. 57
❑ homework – Build and Animate Ball Rolling p. 51

Week Two
Shading
❑ Shader basics
❑ homework – Shading Donuts p. 37

Lighting
❑ Point lights - intensity, color, shadow
❑ homework – Lighting Donuts p. 41

Rendering
❑ Render globals
❑ homework – Rendering Donuts p. 46

Week Three
Workspace
❑ Outliner
❑ Hotkeys

Modeling
❑ Geometry types
❑ Component mode
❑ homework – NURBS Components p. 63

Animation
❑ Pivot points
❑ homework – Pivot Points p. 73

Shading
❑ Material types
❑ homework – Material types p. 77

Lighting
❑ Spotlights
❑ homework – Spotlight p.80

Rendering
❑ Camera basics
❑ homework – Two-node Camera p.84


Week Four
Workspace
❑ Hypergraph

Modeling
❑ Curve creation and editing
❑ Revolves
❑ Construction History
❑ Extruded surfaces
❑ Lofting
❑ homework – Revolve & Extrude p.97
❑ homework – Lofting Fish p. 103

Animation
❑ Graph editor
❑ homework – Tangent Plane p. 114

Shading
❑ Texture maps
❑ Mapping coordinates
❑ homework – Barn Textures p. 120

Lighting
❑ Soft shadows
❑ Depth maps
❑ Gobos
❑ homework – Soft Shadows p. 130
❑ homework – Gobos p. 133

Week Five
Workspace
❑ Shelves

Modeling
❑ Polygon modeling techniques – box modeling
❑ Extrude face
❑ Split polygon
❑ Smooth proxy
❑ homework – Saddle p. 146

Animation
❑ Hierarchies and groups
❑ homework – Wagon Groups p. 163
❑ homework – Toon Tire p. 167

Week Six
Shading
❑ Bump maps
❑ Transparency
❑ homework – Butterfly p. 172

Lighting
❑ Area lights
❑ Raytraced soft shadows
❑ homework – Cornell Box Area Light p. 177
❑ homework – Raytraced Shadows p. 180

Rendering
❑ Depth of Field
❑ homework – Depth of Field p. 136

Week Seven
Workspace
❑ Artisan select and sculpt
❑ Docking the tool settings
❑ homework – Artisan p. 191

Animation
❑ Motion paths
❑ Driven keys
❑ homework – Motion Path Plane p. 197
❑ homework – Driven Keys p. 203

Shading
❑ Displacement maps
❑ homework – Displacement Wing p. 227

Lighting
❑ Three-point lighting
❑ homework – Three-point Lighting p. 252

Rendering
❑ OptiFX
❑ homework – Optical FX p. 184

Week Eight
Modeling
❑ Text and Bevel Plus
❑ homework – Chicken Model p. 154

Animation
❑ Skeleton basics
❑ Added attributes
❑ homework – Skeleton p. 211

Shading
❑ Toon shading

Lighting
❑ Global Illumination caustics
❑ homework – GI handout

Rendering
❑ Batch rendering animation
❑ homework – Camera Cuts p. 256

Week Nine
Workspace
❑ Show by type in view
❑ Hiding/showing, layers
❑ Snapping

Modeling
❑ Cluster deformers
❑ Lattices
❑ homework – Clusters p. 269

Animation
❑ Constraints
❑ Inverse kinematics
❑ homework – Constraints p. 276
❑ homework – IK Rigging p. 279

Shading
❑ 3d painting
❑ homework – 3D Painting p. 291

Lighting
❑ final gather in mental ray
❑ homework – Final Gather p. 294

Rendering
❑ Motion Blur
❑ homework – Motion Blur p. 299

Week Ten
❑ Touch of MEL

Modeling
❑ Advanced poly modeling tools

Animation
❑ Skinning

Shading
❑ Reflection mapping

Lighting
❑ Image based lighting basics

Rendering
❑ Rendering in layers