Creating Visual Effects in Maya

Produce mind-blowing visual effects with Autodesk Maya. Gain the practical skills and knowledge you need to recreate phenomena critical to visual effects work, including fire, water, smoke, explosions, and destruction, as well as their integration with real-world film and video.

In Creating Visual Effects in Maya, Maya master Lee Lanier has combined the latest studio techniques with multi-chapter, hands-on projects and professionally-vetted workflows to bolster your CG toolkit. Engaging, full-color tutorials cover:

• Creating foliage, fire, and smoke with Paint Effects 
• Growing Maya Fur and nHair on clothing, characters, and sets 
• Replicating water, smoke, sparks, swarms, bubbles, and debris with nParticles and nCloth
• Controlling scenes and simulations with expressions and MEL, Python, and PyMEL scripting
• Adding dust, fog, smoke, rippling water, and fireballs with Fluid Effects containers
• Creating damage with Effects presets, deformers, and animated textures
• Matchmoving and motion tracking with Maya and MatchMover
• Creating complex destruction by combining rigid bodies, nParticles, nCloth, and Fluid Effects
• Setting up, rendering, and compositing mental ray render passes with Autodesk Composite, Adobe After Effects, and The Foundry Nuke

The companion website (www.focalpress.com/cw/lanier) features a treasure trove of Maya, MatchMover, After Effects, and Nuke project files, image sequences, texture bitmaps, and MEL, Python, and PyMEL scripts, allowing you to immediately apply the techniques taught in the book.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Adding Foliage, Fire, and Smoke with Paint Effects
Chapter 2: Growing Short Hair, Long Hair, Grass, and Electric Arcs with Fur and nHair
Chapter 3: Creating Water, Smoke, and Sparks with nParticles
Chapter 4: Generating nParticle Swarms and Bubble Masses with Expressions and MEL Scripting
Chapter 5: Simulating Semi-Rigid and Rigid Debris with Python, PyMEL, and nCloth
Chapter 6: Producing Dust Puffs, Fog, Trailing Smoke, and Fireballs with Rigid and Fluid Dynamics
Chapter 7: Animating Fire, Water, and Damage with Effects, Fluid Effects, Deformers, and Textures
Chapter 8: Building Reference Models and Motion Tracking with Maya and MatchMover
Chapter 9: Combining nCloth, nParticles, and Fluid Effects to Create Complex Destruction
Chapter 10: Preparing, Rendering, and Combining Render Passes