Thursday, October 23, 2008

Week 2 with Pascal

I'll be out for week 2 (we'll do a makeup lecture/bonus class at some point in the future) so Pascal will be there to take you through some review of the basic
  • camera,
  • move,
  • rotate,
  • scale and
  • keyframe
skills we covered in week 1. Also, please have him show you the basics of opening and saving files, in case there are any questions about getting the project file's from the book lessons to work.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

October 2008 Intro Curriculum

Week One
Workspace
  • Introduction to the Maya Interface
  • Cartesian Coordinates and 3D space
  • Project Management
  • Layers
  • Outliner
  • Hotkeys - Q,W,E,R,4,5
  • Camera navigation
  • 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
  • optional – 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


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
Week Six

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

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
  • TBA
Lighting
  • TBA
Rendering
  • Batch rendering animation
  • homework – Camera Cuts p. 256
Week Nine
Workspace
  • Show by type in view
  • 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
  • TBD
Rendering
  • Motion Blur
  • homework – Motion Blur p. 299
Week Ten
  • Touch of MEL
Modeling
  • Advanced poly modeling tools
Animation
  • Skinning
Shading
  • Reflection mapping
Lighting
  • TBD
Rendering
  • Rendering in layers