How to Cheat in Maya 2010: Tools and Techniques for the Maya Animator |  | Author: Eric Luhta
Publisher: Focal Press
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
Buy New: $26.99
as of 9/8/2010 06:40 CDT details
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Seller: pbshopus
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 11,314
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/DVD
Pages: 328
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.4 x 1
ISBN: 0240811887
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.696
EAN: 9780240811888
ASIN: 0240811887
Publication Date: December 29, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Take your animations to the next level with this essential guide to Maya 2010. Packed with character animation techniques and the secrets of professional animators, How to Cheat in Maya 2010 provides the tips and tools to help you create high quality animation in the most efficient way possible. This comprehensive guide to animating with Maya contains gold-mine coverage, including animation techniques, using Maya's tools with the 12 animation principles, working with constraints, and even foolproof lighting tricks to show off your work.
With this essential handbook, learn which circumstances call for which techniques, and how to get quality results fast. You will not only learn how to be productive in Maya, but also be given access under the hood to the actual scene files of a professional animator. Covering such topics such as pose to pose blocking, layered animation, fixing gimbal lock, facial animation, and much more, How to Cheat in Maya 2010 is an invaluable resource for artists and animators alike.
-- See "under the hood" of a professional animator's workflow with beginning and ending scene files for every technique and workflow example in the book.
--Complete, step-by-step walkthroughs of essential techniques every animator needs to know such as walk cycles, pose-to-pose blocking, lip syncing to dialogue, and much, much more.
-- Proven "How to Cheat" series - Learn to create impressive, appealing animations using the fastest techniques possible, containing everything you need to know about Maya as a character animator.
--Includes rarely discussed topics, such as reading spline curves, avoiding gimbal lock, animation layers, creating appealing lighting for demo reels, and features interviews with some of the most experienced animation leads and TDs working in the industry
-- Learn to apply these professional techniques to your own animations with the accompanying DVD which includes all scene files to follow along with, as well as final versions to study in the Graph Editor
-- See "under the hood" of a professional animator's workflow with beginning and ending scene files for every technique and workflow example in the book.
--Complete, step-by-step walkthroughs of essential techniques every animator needs to know such as walk cycles, pose-to-pose blocking, lip syncing to dialogue, and much, much more.
-- Proven "How to Cheat" series - Learn to create impressive, appealing animations using the fastest techniques possible, containing everything you need to know about Maya as a character animator.
--Includes rarely discussed topics, such as reading spline curves, avoiding gimbal lock, animation layers, creating appealing lighting for demo reels, and features interviews with some of the most experienced animation leads and TDs working in the industry
-- Learn to apply these professional techniques to your own animations with the accompanying DVD which includes all scene files to follow along with, as well as final versions to study in the Graph Editor
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
it's about time! December 26, 2009
Dieter Wagner (Charlotte, NC)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've been working as an animator about 4yrs and I have been looking for a book like this forever! Finally a Maya book that is just about character animation. I love how Eric keeps things simple and really explains what the thought process is behind the techniques ("cheats") he is showing. Being able to follow along and actually animate the scenes is great for beginners and experienced animators alike. Having the actual files to open up and check out is priceless. You get to see what a polished scene looks like from an experienced feature film animator. You also get an amazing rig to work with, which is exactly setup like Bishop from [...]. The chapters on the graph editor(GE) are another great bonus, there is so much control and cool things you can do in the GE but if you are not familiar with it, it really makes your brain hurt. This book is well worth reading cover to cover! I decided to even read the chapters that i felt like i knew enough about....and it was well worth it, cause there are tons of little "cheats" that can help even the most seasoned of animators. The book says for 2010, but honestly all the info works for previous versions of Maya except for chapter 11 which deals with animation layers. I think that was just implemented into 2010? If you are an animator, you should have at arms reach from your desk: Disney's Illusion of Life, The Animator' Survival Kit, Character Animation Crash Course, and I'm saying that How to Cheat in Maya 2010 should be there too! This is a MUST HAVE for computer animators!
finally a maya ANIMATION book December 22, 2009
Adam
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is exactly what I've been looking for to help learn animation. It covers everything you need to know about Maya to do character animation. Other maya books have a chapter on animation and that's it, the rest is modeling, texturing, etc but this book deals with animation from cover to cover. It includes all the files on the dvd in step-by-step so you can see how the animation was done in the graph editor, and for exercises on specific techniques you're provided an animation to just learn the technique on its own, which is sooo helpful. The animations are really good too, way better than any other maya book i've seen since the author actually works as an animator on movies and games like Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, Bioshock, Hortan hears a who). And, the technical stuff like constraints and gimbal lock is explained better than anything I've ever seen, anywhere. Also great chapters on doing lip sync, using animation layers a bunch of different ways, blocking, polishing, and tons more. Comes with a cool rig and lots of extras too. If you're an animator or interested in animation you should definitely get this book. The only thing I wish was different was that it was longer!! Thanks for a great one of a kind book.
A Must Have Book if You're Just Starting Out with Maya February 2, 2010
Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
You can take your animation to the next level with Maya, but to do that most of us, well some of us anyway, will need some help as it's a daunting program. It is for me anyway. And that's where this book comes in. Instead of throwing everything at you all at once, Eric Luhta takes you through the program one concept at a time, starting with "Setting Up Projects" and "Work Space Layout" and taking you all the way to "Rendering" at the end of the book.
The book is fairly easy, for me a novice, to understand and it's been helping me more than I can say with the trial version of Maya. I've got two weeks left before my trial runs out, then I have to decide if I want to spend the money, and it's a lot of money, to buy the program. Right now, because computer animation is something I think I can do, I'm leaning toward buying the program. I probably will, but I never would have even considered it without this book.
A book I'll recommend to both my students and my co-workers. January 8, 2010
Richard W. Edwards (Los Angeles, CA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Although aimed at the beginner with big clear color images and step by step procedures (they really should enable the Look Inside feature). This book also contains plenty of gems for the working animator.
It reads like this; I knew that, I knew that, I knew that, HOLY COW I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!!
It's a book I'll recommend to both my students and my co-workers.
Splendid February 18, 2010
Theseus (US of A)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This a very helpful, very thoughtful book. And it knows what it is about -- making character animation work for you.
Not quite sure why there's the big emphasis on "cheat" in the title...maybe this is part of a series, or maybe the publisher thought that it would increase sales...because it isn't about cheating as much as it is about learning techniques. And, frankly, I need to be taught techniques when it comes to animation because Maya is a biiiiiggg program.
And the DVD is not useless! Which is often the case with media attached to books.
I look forward to really digging in and becoming much more proficient when it comes to lip-synching and facial expressions.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
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