Arts
This course is a practical guide to constructing 3D buildings that can be used to populate video game environments. Author Adam Crespi starts with a gas station taken from a photograph—retrieving measurements and dimensions with modular blocking and planning techniques in Adobe Photoshop—and then re-creates the building in Maya with polygonal modeling and advanced texturing techniques. The course shows how to model elements such as walls, doors, and roofs, including stacking UVs on a texture sheet, and also sheds light on simulating real-world details like dirt, wear, and grime, using ambient occlusion and normal baking in a high- to low-poly workflow. The final chapter shows how to export the model to the Unity gaming engine for final cleanup and rendering.
Infographics provide a unique way to visualize your data and trace the story behind it. Join author Mordy Golding in this course as he introduces you to designing charts, graphs, and other infographics in Adobe Illustrator. Mordy reveals five key components to a great information design, and shows how to determine which of the types of graphs available in Illustrator is right for your data. The final chapter takes you step-by-step through the creation of an infographic about renewable energy, using charts, tables, patterns, and text. Plus, Mordy demonstrates how to maximize your export options by creating a file with multiple layers and artboards.
modo has found a strong niche in creating virtual product shots for use in advertising and marketing. By using modo, you can create highly realistic shots of your products, reducing the need for product photography. In this course, Dan Ablan leads us through the workflow required to create such highly realistic 3D renders in modo. Discover the optimal settings for modeling, sculpting, and rendering; learn how to model real-world packaging; work with UV maps, Photoshop textures, and other basic materials; and light the products effectively. Dan closes with an overview of rendering the final 3D images for print or preview.
Dive deep into the Hypershade window and shader creation with Maya and the mental ray rendering engine. In this course, author Aaron F. Ross shows how to create materials and shaders for 3D objects, characters, and landscapes, with reflectivity, transparency, and amazing texture. Become more comfortable building shader networks and open up a lot of new possibilities for creative surfaces in Maya.
This course introduces basic physics simulation principles in Autodesk 3ds Max using MassFX, a system that makes it cost effective to animate rigid body objects, cloth, and particle systems. Author Brian Bradley introduces basic concepts such as gravity, drag, volume, and density, and how Newton's Laws of Motion can help you understand the interaction of objects with these unseen forces. Using the purpose built scene, Brian walks through the tools and features of the MassFX (PhysX) system, applying the principles discussed as he goes. Along the way, discover how to combine rigid bodies and constraints, mCloth fabrics, and mParticles geometry to create fairground-style effects.
The dynamic simulation tools in Maya allow animators and visual effects artists to create convincing animations that would be too difficult or time consuming to keyframe by hand. This course covers the basics of the classic dynamics engine, showing how to build a simulation with passive and active rigid bodies, add attributes like bounce and friction, integrate the simulation with keyframes, and apply dynamic constraints. Author Aaron F. Ross shows how to apply these techniques to a realistic scenario, while explaining tools and concepts like the Rigid Body Solver, gravity fields, and dynamic constraints.
Follow a practical guide to building 3D cityscapes for games. IAuthor Adam Crespi constructs a city block in 3ds Max utilizing low-polygon modeling and advanced texturing techniques. The course shows how to model common city elements such as buildings, intersections, curbs, and roofs and explains how to expand a city quickly and easily by reusing existing geometry in a modular way. The course also sheds light on simulating real-world detail with baking, lighting, and ambient occlusion techniques and offers a series of best practices for exporting to the Unity gaming engine.