MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya by Chris Maraffi

MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya by Chris Maraffi

Whether for big budget films and game productions or lower budget TV and Internet content, creating flexible and believable character rigs is an essential skill required to bring any 3D animation to life. As the leading software used for cutting-edge animation, Maya has an established rigging toolset for creating realistic character controls. Traditionally, however, the process of manually building custom rigs in the software interface has been time-consuming and expensive for those who want to produce high-quality 3D characters. Now for the first time and from the author of the best-seller, Maya Character Creation, comes an in-depth guide on how the pros are using MEL (Maya Embedded Language) scripting to streamline and automate the rigging process. With MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya, you’ll learn how you can build custom character rigs in a matter of seconds, as opposed to days or weeks. In this detailed guide, you’ll learn: • The techniques used to build a complex character rig in the software interface, followed by instructions for writing the equivalent MEL code for scripting the entire process. • Fundamental concepts of creating animation controls in Maya, from the basics of creating, editing, and binding skeletons, to more complex rigs with controls that employ spline IK and channel connections. • Important coding techniques such as using conditional statements, loops, variables, and procedures. • How to create a character animation GUI (Graphical User Interface) that makes animating the character easy and fast. • Important skills for building rigs using numerous hands-on exercises, all code examples and Maya files available on the companion Web site.

Chris Maraffi has been teaching 3D computer graphics for over ten years, most recently as the course director of the scripting and character rigging classes at Full Sail University in Orlando. He has also written two popular books: Maya Character Creation published by New Riders, and Softimage XSI Character Animation FX and Design (Coriolis). In addition, he has lectured internationally at numerous conferences and universities, including SIGGRAPH, Animex, Red Stick, UNM Arts Lab, NYU CADA, Parsons School of Design, School of Visual Arts, NYIT, Academy of Art, Mesmer Animation Labs, and The Master’s Institute.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780321383532
ISBN 10	0321383532
Title	MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya
Author	Chris Maraffi
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pearson Education (US)
Year published	2008-12-04
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.