VIP: Maya 2009 is in the Library SCC (Student Computer Center) now! (Also, Towers, Maucker Union and Schindler SCCs).

4:30 p.m. Wednesday, January 28th, 2009


  1. This old Maya web page will be REPLACED by the new FALL 2009 page on Friday afternoon or evening.

  2. Please look at Class #1 review and Class #2 PREVIEW/review January 12 and January 14 links.

  3. Read Chapter 2 - Jumping In Headfirst, with Both Feet. After spending two days on "The Solar System" chapter two project, you should learn and be able to understand a great deal from the chapter two material.

    1. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and some of these planets will have 1 or 2 moons. One of the planets has rings.
    2. Making Saturn's Ring we did NOT cover in class. How do you do that?
    3. Applying a Simple Shader - the book takes a different approach to shading and coloring and texturing the planets than we used.
    4. Page 52 - Setting Keyframes - we did this in the Friday class. Set Key Options are explained - All keyable attributes was used instead of the default for the Set Keys on setting. "From Channel Box" was the checkbox we had to set.
    5. Animating rotation of each planet and moon and the sun.
    6. Animating orbits of moons around planets. Animating orbits of planets (and their moon or moons, if any) around the sun.

  4. Who takes Maya, what is Maya, why take Maya, link to YouTube video from Animation Mentor school students showcase, etc.

  5. The first homework assignment is due on Wednesday, August 2nd. 12 questions to answer.

  6. Reminder: Maya class meets in StudioIT 1 (ITT 134 computer lab classroom on 2nd floor) on Friday!


 
   
 
 
Assignments, readings, quiz schedule, class locations. VIP: >>> *** FINAL PROJECTS ***
January 12th to May 12th 2009
 
SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY
Week 1 Jan 12   Jan 14   Jan 16  
Weeks 1 thru 2 readings, tutorials and assignment.

Class #1 review

Vip email note review and links.

NEW: Maya 2009 30 Day Trial download information and LINKS to obtain it. Class #2 PREVIEW/review

Maya UI Overview, aka the fabulous fourteen...

  Class #3 preview/review. GRASSHOPPER.

Main focus and resources for 3rd class.

Spring 2009 SCC Hours

Maya will be in all of the SCC labs starting soon. Watch here for when and where it is first available.

 
Week 2 Jan 19   Jan 21   Jan 23  
 

Martin Luther King Holiday

no class

 

Class #4 preview/review

Assignment #1 collected.


Sun, Earth, Moon teaching example.
Faster Lessons 2 thru 4 Temple tutorial lessons resource. (Avoids download of BIG PDF). Class #5 preview is for classes #5, #6, #7 and possibly even class #8.

Sun, Earth, Moon teaching example.

Class #5 Preview Maya Basics - Temple tutorial lessons.

Assign one due Wednesday.Pencil and paper exercises.

Assign two: Survey questions to REPLY to. Send to jacobson@cs.uni.edu or REPLY to note you got. Due: ASAP!

 
Week 3 Jan 26   Jan 28   Jan 30  
Week #3 preview: STUDY this page and WATCH these videos.

*** VIP ***
Changed!
ITTC 134
StudioIT 1

  QUIZ ONE

WAS MOVED BACK ONE WEEK!

Library SCC has Maya as of 4:30 p.m.

Maucker SCC has Maya ...
on all computers now.
StudioIT 1
ITT 134 2nd floor laptop lab

Class #8 review. Revolve and Extrude experience.

QUIZ ONE NEXT Wednesday.
 
Week 4 Feb 2   Feb 4   Feb 6  
 

ITT 322 classroom class!!!

  VIP: QUIZ ONE
Study Guide
is now DONE. You already have these as handouts from week #3.

Quiz One detailed STUDY GUIDE and outline of topics.

  StudioIT 1 ITT 134 EVERY FRIDAY

Wine Glass; Sun, Earth, Moon assignment; Friday class review email note.

 
 
Week 5 Feb 9   Feb 11   Feb 13  

Review of Friday and Monday classes: Luxo Lamp and Wineglass... is also a PREVIEW of Wednesday's class.

Assignment One due by 10 p.m. as an email attachment to jacobson@cs.uni.edu will be the Sun, Earth, Moon scene file.   Lighting and Lamps in Maya - study the Luxo Lamp and Wineglass pages.

Pull back the CURTAINs and watch the 3DBuzz video and also a review of Luxo Lamp classes.

  CURTAINS modeling
See the Feb 11th links!
QUIZ TWO will be NEXT Wednesday.
 
Week 6 Feb 16   Feb 18   Feb 20  
  Class #15 review Grouping, Parenting, SDK, Locators, Custom Attributes.
Assign #2: Sculpting due on Thu 02/26/09.
Pumpkin head, egghead, snowman or whatever crazy sculpture you create.

VIP: QUIZ TWO

STUDY GUIDE is now ready.

  StudioIT 1 lab  
 
Week 7 Feb 23   Feb 25   Feb 27  
  ITT 322   SCULPT FACES review and answer to question about Egghead eye socket coloring. Sculpture of egghead, snowman, spongebob or carved pumpkin is due by 10 p.m. Dynamics menu set - PARTICLES. Gravity, Wind, Collisions. Special Effects in Maya.

28 Students Done: Egghead sculptures as of 10:00 p.m. Thursday.

Note: 7 students works were added at 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon. They are at the top of the web page.
 
Week 8 Mar 2   Mar 4   Mar 6  
  ITT 322 classroom class.   Pool Table assignment.

You can get the pool table handout from ITTC 307 office door, or get it on Friday if you missed class today (March 4th).

  StudioIT 1 lab  
 
Week 9 Mar 9   Mar 11   Mar 13  
  ITT 322 classroom class.  

Maya Quiz #3 WILL NOT BE GIVEN until AFTER spring break.

Answer to question about Animating the "Cue Ball" to strike the other pool ball or the racked up pool balls.

Pool Table Problem solution for balls falling through the table as if it is NOT a Passive Rigid Body.

POOL TABLE assignment due.

Pool Table assignment.

StudioIT 1 lab


Joints: Rigging Characters, i.e. Skeletons and Kinematics in Maya.

Due to the pool table problems, the handout for RIGGING was not ready. It will be handed out on the Monday after SPRING BREAK!


The POOL TABLE problems revisited. Please read THIS ALL carefully, if you are having trouble still and trying to do the ROUND carved out pool ball pockets.

 
 
Week 10 Mar 23   Mar 25   Mar 27  
 
Joints: Rigging Characters, i.e. Skeletons and Kinematics in Maya.

VIP Group Exercise
Skeletons and Joints - Rigging Characters

Character Setup with the Joint tool is done using the Animation menu set.

  Rigging Reading Assignment and Review of the March 25th class. Please read over this material BEFORE Friday's StudioIT 1 hands-on class.

StudioIT 1 lab

LANG 213 COMPUTER LAB on Monday March 30th!!!

Week 11 Mar 30   Apr 01   Apr 03  
 

Rigging a ball to Squash and Stretch involves Deformers, parenting, and set driven key.

  VIP: Maya Assignment and class review page for April Fool's Day class. Part of Quiz Study Guide too. StudioIT 1 lab

Review of class #32: Per Particle Color Ramps, Dynamics menu set, Maya Special Effects and practicing some of the skills used in the Particle Fountain assignment.

Week 12 Apr 06   Apr 08   Apr 10  
 

Quiz on Wednesday: Study Guide and review of particles and special effects with Color Ramps.

QUIZ Study Guide

Ideas for open ended final project from Fall 2008 student's final Maya projects. Note: we should be able to publish the animations this spring, instead of just rendering 2 or 3 or 4 frames to give an idea of the animation.

The Final Project description and outline from Fall 2008.

Maya Fountain Assignment due by 10 p.m. StudioIT 1 lab
Week 13 Apr 13   Apr 15   Apr 17  
  LANG 213 COMPUTER LAB

Subtract 109 from 322 and what do you get?
213 Lang instead of 322 ITT today.
Building mathematics...

Maya to After Effects to Flash rendered animation of the "Solar System".

3 moons with Sun and Earth spheres. Note the 3 colored faces on the "Earth" and the 2 extruded faces on the "Sun". This is to enable observation of the rotation of each "planet" on its own axis.

  The SDK driven MAYA door up AE rendered FLV animation.
AE = After Effects

Maya Final Project

These eyes follow the movement of an animated NURBS sphere. Constrain menu, Aim is the command that was used.

Study and read the Storyboarding handout from Michael O'Rourke book. Your final project story board is due Wednesday, April 22nd at 9 a.m. in class.

FLV = Flash video format

Maya Batch rendering to After Effects

After Effects Rendering to Flash Video

FLV to your sunny.uni.edu web site...

StudioIT 1 lab

Ideas for open ended final project from Fall 2008 student's final Maya projects. Note: we should be able to publish the animations this spring, instead of just rendering 2 or 3 or 4 frames to give an idea of the animation.

The Final Project description and outline from Fall 2008, if you need ideas.

The Spring 2009 project is even more open ended, if that is possible.
Week 14 Apr 20   Apr 22   Apr 24  
  LANG 213 COMPUTER LAB on Monday

Animation Curves, Graph Editors and Bouncing a Ball. Also the Render Settings panel.

Storyboard assignment and brief preview of lattice deformers and path animation approaches (to be covered on April 22nd - Gravity Day). Path Animations and Lattice Deformations are two new techniques demonstrated here.

VIP: ANIMATION CURVES 3DBuzz videos "reading" assignment.


StudioIT 1 lab Publishing a Maya animation: Maya to After Effects to Flash and then uploading to sunny.uni.edu web server.
Week 15 Apr 27   Apr 29   May 01  
 

LANG 213 lab

Publishing a Maya animation: Maya to After Effects to Flash and then uploading to sunny.uni.edu web server.

Animated light intensity with curtains example.

animatedBall.mb Maya Scene file or use the Week 15 folder.

 

EXAM

Study Guide for the Wednesday test.

STUDIO IT 1

Finals Week May 4th   May 6th   May 8th  
  ...   10-11:50 a.m. for Final Exam period

Student's Final Projects that I have been able to render and get published as Flash video.

Fly out of CR to Sacramento, California for wedding.

Back on Tuesday afternoon (May 12th).

Grades due at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13th.