Beginner's Guide to Character Creation in Maya - OUT OF PRINT!

PLEASE NOTE: This book is sold out and with no current plan to get it reprinted.

Bringing you practical tuition and advice from an experienced 3D Trainer, this invaluable book offers a comprehensive guide to character creation in Autodesk’s very popular 3D software, Maya.

Beginner’s Guide to Character Creation in Maya continues 3dtotal’s tradition of offering helpful guides for beginners looking to step into the world of digital art. Talented 3D Animator and Trainer, Jahirul Amin, gives an insightful breakdown of how to model from scratch using Maya and Mudbox. Not only will you learn about the principles of rigging and animation, with a step-by-step guide detailing how to link the joints and create constraints and controls for animation, you will also learn how to correctly light and render your scene for porfolio-worthy presentation. Plus, in-depth chapters on anatomy will provide you with a solid foundation on which to develop your 3D character skills, so that by the end of this book you will have created your very own realistic walk cycle. With over 30 hours of downloadable videos, this is a book of amazing value that you won’t want to miss.

About the Author
Jahirul Amin is a 3D Trainer at Double Negative in London, UK. Prior to this, he was an Associate Lecturer at the prestigious National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University, where he was responsible for the Maya input on both the bachelor’s and master’s degree courses for several years.

Product details
Softback 288 pages
Downloadable resources: 30 hours of videos
Dimensions: 210mm x 297mm
Paper quality: Full colour premium pages
ISBN: 978-1-909414-20-4

Introduction

Meet the artist

01: Pipeline and interface
Introduction to the digital pipeline
Introduction to the Maya interface
Introduction to Mudbox interface
How the pipeline works
Creating a new project

02: Anatomy, modeling, and sculpting
The anatomical position
Overview of the skeleton
The bony landmarks
Muscles and tendons
Body fat and proportions
Introduction to the Maya
modeling tools
Using reference images in
Maya and Mudbox
Creating a base mesh in Maya
and Mudbox
Retopology in Maya and UVs

03: Texturing and shading in Maya and Mudbox
Skin and eyes
Checking for UV distortion
Unwrapping our character
Preparing the reference images
Painting the color map
Creating the additional maps
Look development

04: Rigging and deformation in Maya
Joint mechanics
Muscles and motion
Planning a rig
Rigging fundamentals
Rigging the torso
Rigging the neck and head
Rigging the arms
Rigging the hands
Rigging the legs
Rigging the feet
Cleaning up the rig
Adding the volume joints
Skinning
Finalizing the rig

05: Locomotion and animation in Maya
Principles of animation
Newton’s laws of motion
Animating a bouncing ball
Animating a walk cycle

06: Lighting and rendering in Maya
Light and color
Gamma and linear workflow
Creating a look development
environment and lighting

Closing words...
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

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Endorsements

“Jahirul masterfully describes every foundation an artist needs to know to create believable characters, both artistically and technically. Surely the knowledge contained in this book transcends the software – it can and should be used as support material for digital artists”
Richard Maegak
Technical Director at Techno Image | riggerman.co

“A must-have book for any artist who is new to creating characters in Maya. It covers a lot of great techniques both in modeling and rigging/animation, and will certainly kick-start your career as a character creator. It’s the type of book that I was looking for when I first started off making characters”
Sven Juhlin
Freelance Character Artist | daybreakcg.com

“It is a good start for a beginner 3D artist: very straightforward, clean, and easy to read and understand. I would strongly recommend this to anyone interested in character creation in Maya!”
Igor Kudryavtsev
Asset Supervisor at Glukoza Production | eagerart.net