Create innovative CG solutions with Maya and this creative guide

Professional Maya artists have to think on their feet. It's nothing for them to receive just vague sketches or incomplete ideas of what the studio wants and have to come up with something brilliant. If you're an intermediate to advanced Maya user, Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator's Guide, Second Edition is what you need to meet the challenge. Professional Maya artist Eric Keller offers inspired solutions and hands-on projects, as well as numerous practical shortcuts and deadlines, so you learn to produce innovative CG assets from scratch, using Maya, on a deadline.

• Shows intermediate to advanced Maya users new solutions, workarounds, and shortcuts for creating Maya visual effects on deadline
• Gives readers plenty of hands-on projects, so they come up with solutions that they can add to their Maya toolsets
• Offers workable ideas that can be applied, no matter which version of Maya software is being used
• Presents projects in an engaging style, with pages of full-color imagery to illustrate concepts

Create amazing effects with the creative insights and fresh advice in this new edition of Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator's Guide.

Learn smart ways to make inspiration happen

When a director tells you to produce that next great visual effect, your job may depend on knowing fast, creative ways to get things done in Autodesk Maya. The new edition of this full-color guide is what you need to get more out of Maya and boost your professional creativity at the same time. As you work through a series of challenging projects, you'll not only discover inspired solutions and helpful shortcuts, you'll also gain valuable studio smarts from professional CG artist and author Eric Keller. The book also features mini lessons in MEL scripting from veteran Maya wizard Max Dayan to help you automate the setup of complex effects rigs. Written for Maya versions 2012, 2013, and 2014, this guide provides expertise to all Maya users wishing to up their game.

• Propel a rocket through the air using Maya Fluids
• Orchestrate a beautiful flowering cherry tree with nParticle collisions
• Choreograph a dynamic school of fish with a custom-built flocking simulator
• Use Paint Effects to create bursts of electric energy shooting sci-fi style through a cave
• Grow a beard of bees on a character's face using nCloth and nParticles
• Use Maya's nHair to create a swimming jellyfish with stinging tentacles

Rig Medusa's snakey hair to react dynamically to flying bats

Use MEL scripting to create an animation rig for a magic stone path

Melt a highly detailed gun model using nCloth