Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation, Second Edition

Autodesk Maya Techniques / Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation is your solution for creating convincing characters in Autodesk Maya. Get hands-on experience with innovative tools and powerful industry-recognized techniques as you learn to model like a professional; set-up your skeleton in a fast and easy way; and create realistic facial controls. This book will help you achieve hyper-real characters quickly and effectively.

Get the inside scoop on high-end production techniques from industry pros Erick Miller, Paul Thuriot, and Jeff Unay! Through project-based lessons, follow Jeff Unay’s process for modeling the beast, Paul Thuriot’s workflow for rigging the beast’s body, and Erick Miller’s tips and techniques on complex facial rigging for maximum flexibility. The book carefully delineates the entire production process for the beast’s creation, so that you can both understand the individual techniques and how they relate to each other in a pipeline. You will also be able to take advantage of helpful video demonstrations so you can watch the experts at work.

By examining the entire process, you will learn strategies for creating characters with an emphasis on anatomy and realism. Lessons are designed to cover effective workflows for devising models that can be easily manipulated and animated. The methods discussed in this book can be applied to any setup needs that you may have because you will learn the rigging process from the concept stage through to pipeline integration.

With this book, you will:
* Be introduced to modeling theories
* Learn how to use powerful tools like the Soft Modification Tool and the Insert Edge Loop Tool
* Learn how to create custom hotkeys and marking menus
* Import image planes and block out a character
* Create an Adobe Photoshop network
* Use automation scripts
* Understand how to use a multiple rig workflow
* Lock, paint, mirror skin weights and connect a bound rig to a control rig
* Create corrective blend shapes, and set-up cluster controls
* Learn how to create a jaw, eye and lip setups
* Discover concepts of a realistic skin shader

Included on DVD:
* Video demonstration of workflows & animation skills.
* Artist interviews
* MEL scripts
* Reference Guides
* Support Files

What you need to use this book:
* Autodesk Maya Complete 2008 software
* DVD-ROM drive

"Maya Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation" is your solution for creating convincing characters in Autodesk Maya. Get hands-on experience with innovative tools and powerful industry-recognized techniques as you learn to model like a professional; set-up your skeleton in a fast and easy way; and, create realistic facial controls. This book will help you achieve hyper-real characters quickly and effectively. Get the inside scoop on high-end production techniques from industry pros Erick Miller, Paul Thuriot, and Jeff Unay. Through project-based lessons, follow Jeff’s process for modeling the beast, Paul’s workflow for rigging the beast’s body, and Erick’s tips and techniques on complex facial rigging for maximum flexibility.This book carefully delineates the entire production process for the beast’s creation, so that you can both understand the individual techniques and how they relate to each other in a pipeline. The companion DVD includes helpful video demonstrations so you can watch the experts at work.

Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation, Second Edition

Autodesk Maya Techniques / Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation is your solution for creating convincing characters in Autodesk Maya. Get hands-on experience with innovative tools and powerful industry-recognized techniques as you learn to model like a professional; set-up your skeleton in a fast and easy way; and create realistic facial controls. This book will help you achieve hyper-real characters quickly and effectively.

Get the inside scoop on high-end production techniques from industry pros Erick Miller, Paul Thuriot, and Jeff Unay! Through project-based lessons, follow Jeff Unay’s process for modeling the beast, Paul Thuriot’s workflow for rigging the beast’s body, and Erick Miller’s tips and techniques on complex facial rigging for maximum flexibility. The book carefully delineates the entire production process for the beast’s creation, so that you can both understand the individual techniques and how they relate to each other in a pipeline. You will also be able to take advantage of helpful video demonstrations so you can watch the experts at work.

By examining the entire process, you will learn strategies for creating characters with an emphasis on anatomy and realism. Lessons are designed to cover effective workflows for devising models that can be easily manipulated and animated. The methods discussed in this book can be applied to any setup needs that you may have because you will learn the rigging process from the concept stage through to pipeline integration.

With this book, you will:

• Be introduced to modeling theories
• Learn how to use powerful tools like the Soft Modification Tool and the Insert Edge Loop Tool
• Learn how to create custom hotkeys and marking menus
• Import image planes and block out a character
• Create an Adobe Photoshop network
• Use automation scripts
• Understand how to use a multiple rig workflow
• Lock, paint, mirror skin weights and connect a bound rig to a control rig
• Create corrective blend shapes, and set-up cluster controls
• Learn how to create a jaw, eye and lip setups
• Discover concepts of a realistic skin shader

Included on DVD:

• Video demonstration of workflows & animation skills.
• Artist interviews
• MEL scripts
• Reference Guides
• Support Files

What you need to use this book:

• Autodesk Maya Complete 2008 software
• DVD-ROM drive

Autodesk, the official author of this book, has gathered top artists to write specific sections. The author team, lead by Maya Master Marc Andre Guindon, includes industry experts who have perfected their techniques over years of high-end film and game production: Jeff Unay of WETA, Nick Lloyd of Digital Domain, Erick Miller of Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Paul Thuriot of EA.

Maya Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation is your solution for creating convincing characters in Autodesk Maya. Get hands-on experience with innovative tools and powerful industry-recognized techniques as you learn to model like a professional; set-up your skeleton in a fast and easy way; and create realistic facial controls. This book will help you achieve hyper-real characters quickly and effectively. Get the inside scoop on high-end production techniques from industry pros Erick Miller, Paul Thuriot, and Jeff Unay. Through project-based lessons, follow Jeff’s process for modeling the beast, Paul’s workflow for rigging the beast’s body, and Erick’s tips and techniques on complex facial rigging for maximum flexibility. This book carefully delineates the entire production process for the beast’s creation, so that you can both understand the individual techniques and how they relate to each other in a pipeline. The companion DVD includes helpful video demonstrations so you can watch the experts at work.

Cool Monster

I’ve had about 6 months worth of modeling in Maya and I wanted to learn how to character model. I have to say, if you are a beginner, do not get this book. This book goes over the techniques used for each step of modeling the beast on the cover, it does not go in to detail on how to do the very complex modeling (Ex. One step is "Increase Overall Level of Detail", then it just shows a picture of what the final product should be.) On the other hand, if you have experience modeling then this book is great. It has good reference images and all of the scenes from the book are on the CD so you can really get a view of what you should be doing.

build monsters!

Gosh, isn’t that an impressively scary creature on the cover? The narrative uses the character as the pedagogic example. Explaining how you can likewise make your own monster in Autodesk Maya. Think of this perhaps as a weird anatomy lesson. Where Maya can let you create an arm, for instance. With all the requisite intricate articulation needed for verisimilitude. Sure, it is an imaginary creature. But Maya keys off the human form.

From a top down vantage, you will probably commence with defining the skeleton. Using the spine to provide the main framework. What Maya lets you do is deliberately distort various skeletal joins, to build monstrosity. Later, once you’ve done the skeleton, then you can pile on the musculature for added effect.

Cool.