Maya expert Lee Lanier, whose professional credits include Shrek and Antz, lays out a series of tips, tricks, solutions, and key time-savers for all the major areas of Maya -- customization, modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering, dynamics, character set-up, and project management. It is not a book that needs to be read cover-to-cover. Intermediate-level and seasoned users alike will selectively improve their skills by dipping in to their specific topics of interest.
Short, quick-hit recipes of 1 to 3 pages range from the less-well-known shortcut, to providing the “easy button” for a complex procedure, to the downright “cheat” culled from years of experience in a fast-paced, demanding production pipeline where every second counts.
Full-color screenshots and illustrations drive home concepts to save the reader time for applying the techniques. Written in a light-handed but feature-focused style, the book offers a variety of quick how-to’s that cover the entire gamut of using Maya, such as creating a game inside Maya, curling particles for smoke, texturing individual particles, as well as with many “poor man’s” shortcuts for 3D tracking, render farms, and more.
