"This book will teach you what you need to know about Dynamics from an introductory level and will also allow you to explore advanced concepts in a comfortable format."
--Ian Cairns, Editor, MAYA Association
Learning Maya 5: Dynamics is your solution to creating stunning effects in Maya.
New for Maya 5!
If your animations don't follow the laws of physics, this book is the tool you've been looking for. You'll approach Maya Dynamics from an introductory level and explore advanced concepts in a comfortable format. You'll work with both Rigid and Soft Body dynamics, particle animation and rendering, emitters, and much more. Helpful step-by-step exercises guide you as you build smoke, dust, fire, and water. Maya's Dynamics engine will allow you to add realism to you animations and create realistic effects without having to go back to school. Learning Maya 5 | Dynamics will help you prove that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to make one fly!
Features:
Each chapter included a theoretical discussion to help you understand the concepts at play, as well as easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorials so that you can start working right away. This book also includes a DVD-ROM featuring chapter-by-chapter overviews offered by the book's writer, John Patton, an Alias|Wavefront(TM) Certified Instructor. Gain additional insight and assistance from these valuable bonus discussions.
With this book you will:
* Create and animate Rigid Body Objects.
* Create and animate particles using fields, goals, ramps and expressions.
* Render particles with hardware graphics and software techniques.
* Dynamically animate NURBS and polygonal surfaces using Soft Bodies.
* Instance geometry with particle motion.
* Use Rigid Body constraints sand Soft Body springs
And much more...
If you’ve seen Star Wars: Episode I then you’ve seen Maya’s dynamics animation at work. "Dynamics" refers to Maya’s mathematical solutions for physics-based animation, such as the way objects collide (think crashing Pod Racers) or the way particles flow (fire, smoke, water, etc.). In
Learning Maya 5: Dynamics, the authors explore all the ways Maya’s Dynamics can be used to create these effects without, well, going down in flames.
Part of the "Learning Maya" series, Dynamics covers the use of particles, rigid and soft bodies, hardware and software rendering, particle goals and other topics. Although aimed squarely at Maya artists with some experience, the book includes a CD with the necessary project files for anyone to load and dissect, as well as a DVD introducing features new to Maya 5.
Beginning with an exploration of rigid body dynamics, using the crashing of a bowling ball into 10 bowling pins as an example, the authors demonstrate many of the basic procedures used in building a dynamics system. The next chapter builds on the previous one by showing how to build a wind chime. Again, we have a simple example demonstrating an advanced technique. The wind chime uses the same forces of dynamics seen in the bowling ball example (the chimes crash into each other and bounce around) but we have an added layer of complexity in that the chimes hang by a string, and so are limited in their movement. Using a system of constraints, we learn how to restrict the movement of these virtual objects.
Subsequent chapters explore particles and their use in creating fire, smoke, sparkles, and even flocks of models like butterflies. Particles, constraints, and dynamics are used daily in commercial animation, but there are so many variables and different approaches it can often get confusing. Dynamics teaches, through example, how these system can be put to work and how to control them quickly and easily. --Mike Caputo
