ABSTRACT

All professional animators know a handful of secrets that give them an edge in a production environment. "How to Cheat in Maya" puts these secrets in your hands! Learn time and energy saving techniques tested in real Hollywood productions in this book, jam-packed with screenshots and scene files designed to get you up to speed quickly.

From menus to modeling, lipsync to lighting, How to Cheat in Maya 2013 covers all of the methods available in the latest version of Maya. Get up to speed quickly and produce stellar results with these insider workflows. With new, updated cheats for the latest version of Maya, "How to Cheat in Maya" is an essential guide for amateur and professional 3D animators alike. Fulyl updated with gold-mine coverage including: expanded sections on production workflow, all new chapters covering rigging cheats and Maya's referencing tools,  and brand new project files demonstrating production-proven techniques.

The companion website includes complete scene files for exercises and techniques, extra rigs, Quicktime movies of full projects, and video tutorials.

chapter |28 pages

Splines

chapter |4 pages

Interlude: To School or Not to School?

Can You Teach Yourself Animation At Home?

chapter |16 pages

Graph Editor

chapter |18 pages

Constraints

chapter |2 pages

Interlude: The Right Stuff:

Making sure shots on your reel have everything you need to get noticed

chapter |22 pages

Cycles

chapter |18 pages

Animation Layers

chapter |4 pages

Interlude: Your Demo Reel

New Guidelines for a Changing Industry