The Gnomon Workshop has released eight new training DVDs on texturing, lighting and particle rendering in Alias|Wavefront's Maya, as well as two "analog" titles on character sculpture, produced by industry veteran John Brown, a new addition to the Gnomon team. Each title contains two hours of instruction, lecture notes, resource spotlights and bonus materials. They are priced at $69 each and may be purchased at www.thegnomonworkshop.com.

The DVDs were produced by Darrin Krumweide, associate director of the Gnomon School, Jeremy Engleman, digital artist at DreamWorks Feature Animation, Andrew Orloff, principal and VFX supervisor at Zoic studios and character designer/sculptor John Brown (PLANET OF THE APES).

"With six new Maya titles that focus on texturing and rendering, we are addressing the needs of an industry which demands high-quality visual output, produced effectively and efficiently," explains Gnomon Workshop director Alex Alvarez. "In conjunction with our new Maya titles," we have decided to launch a new 'analog' component to the Gnomon Workshop. While CG tools have become an indispensable component to today's entertainment industries, their visual impact lies firmly on a foundation of design, composition and storytelling. John Brown, an industry veteran in the field of character/creature design and sculpture, has spent countless hours producing a pair of extremely informative sculpture DVDs. These new analog titles will help any digital artist who is interested in developing their eye and thought process for organic work. At Gnomon, we have consistently found that individuals with the strongest traditional skills become the strongest digital artists."

The eight new releases are as follows:

MAYA - RENDERING, III: LIGHT EFFECTS
The secondary effects of lighting can be simulated through a variety of tools Maya provides. Extremely complex light phenomena such as light filtering through curtains, firelight or light from a stained glass window can be replicated by simply mapping the color of a single light. And caustics, the light that is bent and refocused off of a reflective medium or through a transparent medium, can also be simulated through mapping a light's color. Effects that are actually a result of the lens observing the scene are handled through the lights as well. The lens flare from a sunset, the star points on an ultra bright spot light, the specular blooming of a polished car, or the glint of a charging hoarde's weaponry are all handled through optical effects and shader glow.

MAYA - RENDERING, IV: LIGHT FOG
When light is projected through a medium like atmosphere, water, or a field of very fine particulate matter such as smoke, water vapor, or dust, it illuminates that medium. Maya does not do this in the same way as the real world. However Maya can simulate this phenomenon with light fog. While in the real world the effect is a result of the atmosphere and is independent of the lights, in Maya this fog is added to and adjusted for each light separately. Not only can light fog be used to recreate natural phenomena, but it can be used to simulate plasma, vorticies, spells and a number of particle-like effects, without the overhead of creating and managing particles.

MAYA - TEXTURING, IV: BASIC UV LAYOUT
The ease of polygon texturing has improved to the point that polygon geometry is useful in all types of production. This includes the use of polygons in film, commercials and the traditional application in games. The previous reliance on NURBS modeling and texturing is shifting to full polygon or sub-divisional surfaces. Because of this shift, it is important to understand the techniques for controlling UV texture placement, so that seamless and undistorted texture can be created. This lecture discusses the basic controls and applications for Polygon UV coordinates.

MAYA - TEXTURING, V: ADVANCED UV LAYOUT