We will start by discussing the foundational skills and vocabulary that will be essential as you begin your Maya learning. From there we will move directly into modeling, where we will begin building the vehicle that will be used for the duration of this course. Once the vehicle is built we will move into texturing, rigging, animation, dynamics, and we will finish up with the lighting and rendering of our final animation.

Creating a good UV layout is important when texturing your models. But many times, trying to optimize your model to include everything on one map can create problems with low resolution and the inability to get an appropriate amount of detail on every area of the model. Breaking apart our UVs and textures into multiple texture tiles helps to alleviate this issue. In this course we'll take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a multi-tile workflow. We'll also explore the ways that different applications including ZBrush, Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox, and MARI deal with multiple texture tiles. We'll also talk a lot about the naming conventions of each application and how those names correspond to the placement of the tiles. Once we're done, you'll have a good understanding of what multi-tile texturing is and how you can start to use it in your own projects.

We will start off by learning the basic approach to rendering anything in Maxwell Render, and some important concepts to be aware of whenever starting out with Maxwell. We will then learn how to control the amount of render time that goes into our scenes, we will discuss the Maxwell camera attributes, which play a critical role in the appearance of our rendered images, we will learn how to begin using the physically-correct Maxwell materials to help push our renders to deeper levels of realism, we will discuss the process of creating and controlling light sources, as well as many additional topics and workflows that will help you to get started with Maxwell Render.

Throughout these lessons we will cover the foundations of modeling a high resolution female that will deform properly when animated. Along the way we will learn how we can avoid many common beginner mistakes and develop a workflow that is efficient and effective. We will also learn a lot of basic and advanced female anatomy, and how to capture high resolution realism with simple geometry. By the end of this course you will have a great foundation for building your own female characters for film, broadcast and video games.

These lessons will guide you through lighting for sets and characters in two scenes: one interior and one exterior. Lighting and rendering are often the biggest bottleneck for student and independent productions and can grind a project to a halt. In these lessons we'll focus on the tools and techniques that will help your lighting stay lean without sacrificing quality. Along the way we'll learn about the tools, techniques, and terminology used in character lighting.

We will learn how to deal with issues importing our passes and how to create a missing pass. From there we will learn the basic shuffle and compositing techniques, along with some novel uses of various passes to enhance our composite. We will color correct the foreground and background to match. To ground the vehicle we will create particle effects in NUKEX. Finally we will finish the shot with post effects like flares, lens reflections, lens distortion, blooms, grain, etc. In the end we will have our completed shot in NUKE.

This specific high-level course was designed to evolve your workflows, and give you some ideas to keep in mind as you go through the process of building the robot portion of your transforming robot. The objectives for this fast-pace course include looking at several issues to be dealt with when creating the transforming robot. We'll look at ways to use ZBrush and TopoGun in our workflow to build the fitted pieces and panels of the robot. In addition to modeling techniques, we'll talk about UV layout concepts, creating a proxy, and working cooperatively with other artists, including those working in other applications. It is recommended that you have some experience using Maya, ZBrush, and TopoGun, as we cover a lot of information in a shorter span of time. We won't be going through the modeling of the robot step-by-step, so if you’re a new artist, the Beginner's Guides and Introduction courses are perfect places to start getting up to speed. From there you can check out any of the intermediate step-by-step project based courses and they will give you the tools you need to complete the model.

This specific high-level course was designed to evolve your workflows and give you an in-depth look at creating a complete match move from scratch in NUKEX. The objectives for this fast-pace, intensive course include creating a 3D camera and scene to pass off to the 3D department and create a better piece of footage to give to the final compositors. By the end of this training, you'll have the ability to track your own shots in NUKEX and solve many common match moving and plate cleanup problems. Before we start, I recommend you have experience using NUKE and Maya. We will be moving at a quick pace, so if you're an artist not used to either of these applications, we have many courses to get you started and improve your skillset.

In Volume 9 of this 'Transforming Robot Production Pipeline' series, we will discuss the techniques that were used and some of the issues that were encountered during the lighting and rendering of this transforming robot project. We will look at how we went about matching the lighting between our CG and live-action elements, setting up our materials and textures, and rendering all of the passes and other information that our compositing artists will be using during Volume 10 of this series.

Throughout these lessons, we will learn the tools and techniques used in the setup process of both our robot and truck. The goal is to break this complex idea down into a simple, and manageable form. We'll cover the rigging process in its entirety, and along this journey, we'll be introduced to several tools that will help make this all come together efficiently. By the end of the course, you'll have the set of skills needed to rig your own transforming robot.

We will begin the tutorial by learning the importance of a proper linear workflow whenever dealing with lighting scenarios where realism is of the utmost importance. We will learn how to set up and place light sources within our scene, we will discuss concepts regarding real-world light behavior, and how those principles become very important during the lighting of our scene, as well as many additional topics, tips and techniques that you can put to immediate use in your own studio lighting scenarios.

We will begin the tutorial by learning how to create the basic shape and style of our hair with a high level of precision and a minimal amount of effort. We will use paint effects strokes to assist in the styling and creation of our hair, we will learn how to apply dynamic forces while retaining the styled shape of our hair, and many additional topics that will allow you to start creating beautiful hairstyles for your Maya characters.

Throughout these lessons, we'll cover the workflow used to animate the robot while breaking down each stage of the performance from beginning to end. We'll also modify the robot's rig with add-ons for more control. By the end of the course, you'll have the understanding needed to animate your own transforming robot.

Along the way we will be encountering topology issues and learn new ways of troubleshooting those. We will be focusing on less of a traditional tools that are used today for modeling, and rather explore creative ways of application for the news onces. Upon completing our model, we will look at basics of V-Ray material setup for Maya, where we explore various options and what effect they have, look at couple of a rendering tips to improve the quality of our final image, and touch a few basic steps on compositing of our final image.

Throughout these lessons we will use a combination of Maya, After Effects and Photoshop to do everything from the modeling, animating, texturing, lighting and rendering of an animated title sequence. By the end of this tutorial you'll have an understanding of the knowledge required to create a robotic title sequence from start to finish.

Throughout these lessons we'll create a shot that resembles realistic-looking video footage that would otherwise be difficult to shoot. This tutorial offers an overview of key moments from the production that can inspire. Its lessons cover everything from initial analysis, modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering to final comp using primarily modo and Fusion. The discussed techniques are, however, easily applicable to other mainstream applications.

Rather than focusing on the higher-end scale that is commonly seen in other tutorials, with this tutorial we will be limiting ourselves to just a few thousand polygons. We will begin, not by sculpting a high detail model in ZBrush or Mudbox, but by focusing on the character's actual low polygon in-game model. Once that's built and optimized, we will then focus on adding a good set of UVs before we move onto painting diffuse, normal and specular texture maps. By the end of this tutorial we will have taken a look at numerous tips, techniques and shortcuts all geared towards saving precious time by simply focusing on the actual game model itself.

This specific high-level course was designed to evolve your workflows, and give you some concepts to keep in mind as you go through the process of building the vehicle portion of your transforming robot. We'll look at a few modeling techniques to make the model more realistic, UV layout concepts, and cutting up the model in preparation for its transformation. Before we start, I recommend you have experience using Maya as we cover a lot of information in a shorter span of time. We won't be going through the modeling of this truck step-by-step, so if you’re an artist new to Maya or to modeling, the Beginner's Guides and Introduction courses are perfect places to start getting up to speed. From there you can check out any of the intermediate step-by-step project based courses, automotive courses especially, and they will take you through the entire process and give you the tools you need to complete the model.

These videos will walk through the essential tools for creating photorealistic materials. We'll start with establishing our shading toolkit through the various models of simulating real-world light interactions. Then we'll jump into a series of challenging material types, and develop the basic shading networks required to make them happen.

Throughout this tutorial we are going to talk about the core feaures of RealFlow. Starting with the basics, we'll discuss the fundamental parameters of a standard SPH system as well as looking at the Hybrido solver. We'll also cover some meshing techniques using the RenderKit particle mesher to avoid flickering issues. Then we'll look at how to render our mesh in V-Ray for Maya and finally how to composite our passes in NUKE. After completing this tutorial, we'll have a much better understanding of the entire process to make a realistic and believable fluid.

When creating a creature concept for the film industry, it is common for a director to ask for a detailed character rendering or even a 3D print of the creature before approving a character concept. Throughout these lessons we will look at the creative process of taking a 2D concept and turning it into a 3D digital maquette that is detailed enough to show a film director for approval. Once approved, before the VFX studio can integrate the character concept into it's pipeline it must first be fully retopologized into a clean mesh that is ready for rigging and animation. By the end of this tutorial we will have gone through the entire conceptual process of creating a film-ready character concept that is posed, prepared in accordance with 3D printing standards and rendered for a dramatic presentation.

Throughout these lessons we will take an in-depth look at some mixed polygon modeling techniques using Maya 2011. We'll focus on creating animation-friendly topology for our fantasy style character that will not only deform correctly but will also showcase detailed anatomy. By the end of this tutorial, we will have learned how to model clothes, props, books, candles and a human skull while covering a wide variety of modeling techniques to produce detailed and accurate meshes. While this tutorial uses Maya 2011, the techniques used are transferrable to any other polygon modeling software program.

Each video tutorial is a self-contained lesson centering on one of the commands found in the Edit UVs menu in Maya. This means that these lessons can be viewed in any order you wish, allowing you to jump straight to the content that is most relevant to you. Over the course of these tutorialss, we'll take a detailed look at each of the Edit UVs commands and how each of them can be used to speed up our workflow.

Displacement maps are especially practical for users of ZBrush or Mudbox, who want to render their highly detailed creations in Maya with the utmost speed and efficiency. We will begin this tutorial by learning the basic steps of connecting your displacement maps and controlling the strength of your rendered displacement effects. From there, we will learn about Approximations, and the critically-important role they play in controlling the speed and quality of our rendered displacement effects. Along the way, we will help you identify and work through a number of common displacement-related issues that you may encounter when working on your own projects.

Each video in this course is a self-contained lesson centering on one of the commands found in the Constrain menu in Maya. This means that these lessons can be viewed in any order you wish, allowing you to jump straight to the content that is most relevant to you. Over the course of these lessons, we'll take a detailed look at each of the Constrain commands and how each of them can be used to speed up our workflow.

Film and commercial projects often require very high-resolution, highly detailed vehicle models. However, these models are not appropriate for games or other real-time applications because of the large number of polygons. So in order to be able to rig, animate, or integrate these models into a game engine, we first have to convert the model to a much lower resolution. Using a motorcycle as our example, we'll use Maya to reduce the resolution of many of the pieces. We'll then use TopoGun to create new topology for the very detailed meshes like the engine or radiator. We'll cover methods for baking normal and color maps from within Maya as well as in TopoGun. These techniques will allow us to create a much lower resolution model that is visually very close to its higher-resolution counterpart. Once we're done, you'll have a good grasp of several of the tools we can use to create game-resolution vehicle models and you'll have the knowledge you need to apply those techniques to your own models. If you're interested in building the high resolution motorcycle from start to finish, please check out the Motorcycle Modeling Techniques in Maya course which will take you through that process.

We'll first explore the planning phase of this project, and then dive right in and built the performance from start to finish, learning skills that can be applied to any character. We'll also create very simple but useful mel scripts to select controls faster, discuss the benefit of choosing suitable rotation orders for control objects, and learn ways to overcome gimbal lock interpolations. By the end of this tutorial, you will have attained the set of skills needed to animate fun and believable character interactions.

From a reference picture to the finished shader, these videos will show how to choose the shading models and surface parametrizations to use. We will go over the math and physics involved and how to derive a shader implementation. We will address the issues caused by using raytracing as well as animation whithin the shader and support for use of the shader with Maya's particle system.

We will begin the tutorial by learning how to set up a realistic outdoor illumination source, and how to simulate physically-accurate light behavior within our scene. We will then discuss the importance of incorporating a proper linear workflow into our pipeline, which includes using gamma-correction on our textures and materials within Maya. We will also see how we can use a post application like Photoshop to add some finishing touches to our final render with a minimal amount of effort. By the time you complete this course, you will be much better prepared to overcome many of the common challenges faces when rendering an outdoor environment in Maya.

We will begin these lessons with the final result from the Creative Development: Modeling a Cowgirl Character in Maya and Silo with Antony Ward tutorial. We will continue on with our cowgirl character and take her to the next level. By adding color, light and texture we will bring her to life all while sharing some essential time-saving tips. Starting in Maya, we will explore how to light the scene before we apply and adjust a series of shaders to add a splash of color. We will then output the various render passes we need to move into Photoshop and enhance the overall image. Finally, we will work in some finer details as we apply layers of texture before we complete her look by painting in her hair and adding a background. By the end of this tutorial you will have a good understanding of lighting and rendering in Maya, along with working with render passes and image-based lighting. You will also be confident in taking a render into Photoshop to enhance its look without the use of UVs or complex shaders.

Throughout these lessons we will be learning some of the MEL commands needed to add HIK to a character rigging pipeline. Along the way we will look at some of the limitations with the HumanIK toolset and how we can work around them. By the end of the this tutorial, you will comfortable with HIK whether you are an animator with no rigging experience or a TD looking to add HIK to your rigging pipeline.

Throughout these lessons we will focus on creating a polished image of a cartoon nature. Doing still images for your personal portfolio is important because this builds a library of techniques that can be used later for production. By the end of this tutorial we will have gone through all the steps required to learn the importance of each part so that our image is appealing in the end.

We will start by referencing our game document, which will be our guide through the process of creating our Unity game. We can find information on the look of our models but also on the desired resolutions of the models and textures. We will concentrate on creating game topology for our two characters and two weapon models. We will also cover map generation and texture painting as part of the process. In the end we will have models ready to be rigged and animated or plugged directly into the game engine. We will use a variety of software packages from Maya, to TopoGun, to ZBrush and Mudbox in order to prepare our assets so there will be a lot of back and forth. This course references some pre-made assets and covers methods for modifying and prepping those assets for this particular game. In most of these cases, if you'd like to learn to build these assets from start to finish, there is a tutorial that will fill your need. For instance, in this course we look at the steps we went through to modify the biker character from Creating High Resolution Characters in ZBrush 4 and Creating Game Characters with Maya 2011 and ZBrush 4. So if you'd like to build the character from scratch, those two courses will take you through the process. The same goes for the enemy tick creature, which is from the Introduction the Mudbox 2011, and the assault rifle from Creating Next-Gen Game Assets in Maya.

We'll start by taking a look into our rigging process. We'll learn about bone and influence limits that we should adhere to. We'll learn techniques for creating rigs with a sufficient amount of control, despite our limitations. We'll cover repurposing and optimizing control rigs to work more efficiently. In the end, we will have given the animator a very flexible rig with more than enough control to successful create appealing performances in the characters they've been tasked with. In animation, we'll learn some neat animation tricks and techniques to bring your game assets to life in an fun away; techniques that consist of: reversing an animated sequence, avoiding weightlessness, and tricks for animating a crawling creature with several legs. By the end of this course, you'll have a greater understanding of tools and techniques you can use to create exciting game animations; animations that can then be then handed off to programmers to start polishing the game's functionality.

In this course we will examine the process of creating the game level for our Unity mobile project. We will start by referencing our game document, which will give us a great deal of information, not only on the look of our models, but also on more technical aspects like geometry and texture resolutions. We'll talk about basic modeling techniques for creating the different parts of our game level and we'll concentrate on creating portions of the level that can be seamlessly tiled. We'll go over how we can break down our reference art and where we can add unique details to break up the repeating geometry. We'll finish by talking about methods for making sure all of the pieces match up properly and are saved out for uv and texture work. This course goes over the process for creating our game level and the thoughts behind the decisions but it is not a step-by-step modeling tutorial. If you'd like to get up to speed on modeling in Maya, I'd recommend the Introduction to Modeling in Maya which goes over the tools we use here in greater detail. If you want a more step-by-step look at game-type environments in general, try Creating Low Resolution Environments in Maya and Photoshop.

Throughout the tutorial you will learn techniques for re-purposing rigs to save time in your character setup pipeline. We'll start by merging a completed rig into our character's scene. At that point, we will start modifying the rig to match the proportions of our character. Moving on from there, we will then add controls that are necessary to accommodate any new accessories that require controls. We'll also learn techniques for rigging hair and belts, and use Mel scripts, to help us to cut time on repetitive tasks. By the end of this tutorial, you'll learn how to reuse your own rigged assets, to, in the end, be more productive to your team.

Throughout the tutorial, we'll cover all of the hidden details that are needed to use HDR imagery for lighting in Maya. We'll start with physically based lighting, world scene scale, color management, proper render preview and verification of valid floating point linear color images. Once the rules for using HDR images are clearly laid out, we will take a look at how you can create your own HDR images at home using a DSLR camera, tripod, nodal head and software. Lastly, we'll go over examples of using and editing these images for a variety of indoor and outdoor lighting situations as well as covering light extraction and making HDR kooks from an HDR photo of a light.

We will start the training by taking a look at our game development document as well as the artwork that we have. These will give us a better idea of the technical aspects of our models and their look. We'll talk about building the geometry and creating texture maps for pieces of our level like old oil drums, boards and lights. We'll also cover workflows between Maya and Mudbox for modeling, sculpting, and painting bits of organic debris to illustrate the enemy infestation. We'll finish up by talking about dressing the set temporarily in Maya as a guide for the final dressing in Unity. This course goes over the process for creating props and set dressing and the thoughts behind the decisions but it is not a step-by-step tutorial. If you'd like to get up to speed on modeling in Maya, I'd recommend Introduction to Modeling in Maya which goes over the tools we use here in greater detail. If you want a more step-by-step look at creating assets in Mudbox, we have a variety of training available, including Introduction to Mudbox 2012 which will get you started very quickly. So over the next hour and a half or so, we'll talk about creating the pieces necessary to dress our set and give it a realistic, aged and worn look.

We'll start by learning how Maya's Trax Editor can be used to retarget animation. We'll then take another approach and utilize MEL to accomplish the same thing. Finally, we'll work with Maya's intuitive Human IK toolset to retarget from a performance-captured animation to a custom skeleton. We'll also cover techniques for optimizing and correcting animation after it has been remapped. By the end of this set of tutorials, you will be familiar with several tools you have at your disposal for re-purposing animation, to, ultimately, save production time.

We will start by talking about some steps for starting your UV layout process as well as some important concepts that you should keep in mind whenever preparing your UVs and your textures for use inside of Unity. We will talk about the importance of hiding UV seams on your geometry, planning texture layouts on your objects to maximize efficiency, you will learn UV layout and geometry modification tricks that can dramatically enhance the use of your UV texture space, and we will spend time in Photoshop learning how the textures in our level were created.

This series takes an in-depth look into Maya's Animate menu set.

We will begin with an explanation of the linear workflow process, and help to clarify exactly why a linear workflow is needed is order to get lighting results that are much more realistic. From there, we will learn the various steps for setting up a linear workflow in Maya, including the use of Maya's Color Management features, gamma-correcting images and textures to be rendered and displayed correctly, maintaining a proper linear workflow during the compositing phase, and many additional tips and techniques that will help you get much more realistic lighting results with significantly less effort.

Throughout these lessons we'll delve into the animated growth of a tree branch as a time-lapse video. We'll learn everything from modeling, texturing and shading to the animation and final compositing. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a better understanding of how you can employ efficient and productive techniques for a time-lapse video that can be used when up against a tight deadline.

We will be introduced to a few tools and techniques to create photorealistic material that is suitable for commercial design projects. By the end of this tutorial, we will have touched on modeling, lighting, shading, animation, scripting and rendering for efficiency and quality.

Throughout these lessons we will explore the use of subdivision surfaces to help us quickly create a stylized cowgirl character. We will begin with a base mesh before posing her and adding clothing and detail. The result will be a highly detailed model ready for textures and rendering that can be used in an illustration or even animation. Although we will primarily be using Silo throughout the tutorial, the techniques taught in these lessons can be followed along using any subdivision surfaces software.