Digital-Tutors has released CREATING CARTOON SETS IN MAYA, INTRODUCTION TO MAYA NCLOTH, INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS IN MAYA and PYTHON SCRIPTING IN MAYA. Developed for both students and professionals interested in film, games and television, the new releases provide a combined total of more than 17 hours of self-paced training and offer a multitude of intuitive projects.
"Our latest release is a true testament to Digital-Tutors' commitment new artists and teaching these artists the fundamentals for building a successful career," said Tanya Golubeva, director of Emerging Media at Digital-Tutors. "From simulating realistic cloth and creating dynamic effects, to building custom applications and creating an entire cartoon environment, we have designed fun and creative projects for any artist using Maya. Students and artists new to dynamics or scripting will gain a wealth of knowledge, while professionals and experienced artists will find time-saving techniques to environment creation and simulating cloth."
CREATING CARTOON SETS IN MAYA
Highlights include: look development, using an asset referencing workflow, texturing with UVs and projection, creating stylized models, methods for exaggerating proportions, organic modeling techniques, hard surface modeling techniques, adding textural detail procedurally, working with multiple geometry types, creative use of UV layout, shader and material assembly, building models in sections, creating foliage cards, importing vector art from Illustrator, placing foliage with geometryPaint, working with proxies, creating the illusion of detail, preparing models for use in the pipeline, using blend shapes to create variation, adding local subdivisions to terrain, marking geometry for textures with 3D Paint, using nested ramps and working with scale.
INTRODUCTION TO MAYA NCLOTH
Highlights include: overview of Nucleus Node, realistic cloth simulation, scene scale and settings, time scale, mass, dynamic forces, friction, dynamic attributes, rigidity, passive object collisions, glue strength, pressure, tearing surfaces, caching nCloth, deformation resistance, lift and drag, controlling scene playback, collision layers, painting values and property maps, input mesh attraction, rest shapes, stretch and compression resistance and efficiently working with links and constraints.
INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS IN MAYA
Highlights include: introduction to particle systems, understanding rigid body simulations, overview of dynamic fields such as gravity, wind, turbulence, and drag, setting up simulations to run efficiently, particle instancing, rendering particles with Maya Hardware, software and hardware render buffer, using the fire effects, creating smoke effects, lighting, fireworks and explosive effects, attaching particles to curves, creating soft body effects, colliding particles with surfaces, rigid body simulations with weighted objects and particle interaction with rigid bodies.
PYTHON SCRIPTING IN MAYA
Highlights include: fundamentals of Python programming, plug-in development, rewriting MEL as Python, understanding variables and types, print and concatenation, loops and lists, working with selections, scripting for automation, creating a procedural gear generator, building custom UIs with Python, creating motion trail and lags, timeline based scripting, Python in Maya _expressions, creating a Tkinter GUI, working with Mayapy Shell, and using additional Python editors.
Digital-Tutors (www.digitaltutors.com) is an innovator and leader in video-based training for emerging digital artists. Digital-Tutors maintains strategic relationships and partnerships with Autodesk, Softimage, Pixar, Next Limit, Skymatter, Pixologic and Adobe in the development of the software and education materials.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
