Assignment #6



Relevant Hotkeys/Tools ← Click!

Menu Navigation

Spacebar - Holding down this hotkey will bring up the "hotbox". The hotbox is all of Maya's menus in one place relative to the center of your mouse. This allows you to bypass having to switch menu sets every time you want to access certain functionality.

Camera/Viewport

  • Alt + Left-click and drag - Rotate the camera.
  • Alt + Right-click and drag / Scroll Wheel - Zoom the camera in and out.
  • Alt + Middle-click and drag - Pan the camera.
  • f - Focus camera on the selected object. The camera will now rotate around that object.
  • 4 - Display objects as wireframe.
  • 5 - Display objects as solid.
  • In four panel view: Hover mouse over viewport and press Spacebar to jump in and out.

Object/Component Selection

  • q - Select Tool. Also useful for "canceling" out of another tool.
  • F8 - Object selection mode.

Object Manipulation

  • Red tool handles correspond to the x-axis, green to the y-axis, and blue to the z-axis. Remember this color scheme, as it is used consistently throughout Maya for easy axis identification.
  • w - Move Tool
  • e - Rotate Tool
  • r - Scale Tool
  • + (the plus key) - Makes the tool size larger (affects all manipulation tools). Bigger tool handle sizes make small adjustments easier.
  • - (the minus key) - Makes the tool size smaller.

The Most Important Hotkeys You Will Ever Learn ...Ever!

  • z - Undo. Undoes the last thing you did. Applies to selections and deselections as well. Does not apply to camera movement by default. Maya's undo queue is initially set to only allow 50 undos in a row, so go to Window → Settings/Preferences → Preferences, select Undo from the list, and set the Queue Size to something like 500. You can set it to Infinite, but that may increase the likelihood of Maya crashing. Note for later in the year: importing resets the undo queue, so be careful.
  • Z (Shift + z) - Redo. Undone things are reverted. Be careful not to select or deselect anything if you are doing of bunch of redos, as that will reset the redo queue.
  • g - Repeat last action. If you need to perform a single action multiple times (such as extruding) but do not want to repeatedly dig through Maya's menus, just hit the g key.

For this assignment, we will continue to work on cardinal expressions, specifically sadness. You will pose the face in an open mouth crying pose, closed mouth crying, a very sad pose and a little sad pose. You will be using the Valencia rig for this assignment. Keep in mind that even the slightest details can change how the face is read, so make sure the movements you make show the correct expression you want it to be read as. Use the mirrors in the lab and yourself as reference.

First make a new folder in your student folder and label it “assignment_6”

You can get the maya file for the assignment 6 template on the course website or

You can copy and paste “assignment_6_template” from this pathway into your student folder:

\\ntdfs\cs\unix\projects\instr\production1\cse464a_su17_student_files\assignment_files\assignment_6

Once you’ve opened the assignment in Maya, you’ll notice that a neutral expression has been keyed and labeled for all the poses.

    000 – Open Mouth Crying

    040 – Closed Mouth Crying

    080 – Very Sad

    100 – Very Sad - Side View

    120 – A Little Sad

    140 – A Little Sad - Side View

Make sure as you go through the assignment that you are keying your poses every time you change something and to save often!

Use the “front_face_cam” to see in the view in which you’ll be turning your assignment in. It is highly recommended that you also use perspective and side view as you work on this assignment.

On some of these poses, you might want to turn on the secondary anims.

There’s nothing new to learn for these set of expressions.

For “very sad” and “a little sad” you will be doing both a pout and a frown.

Remember, for the pout use a combination of both the curl and push attributes on the 3 anims of the BOTTOM lip.

PLEASE USE RIGHT/LEFT CAMERA VIEWS. You will need to look at her profile to get the pout right.

The curl attribute will get you to achieve the pushed in dent of the chin and the push attribute will achieve the lip jutting outwards.

Although not mandatory, you may want to use slightly different values for the bottom center lip anim for better results. In general, I suggest using values between 20 to 50 for the curl attribute. For the push attribute use values between 3 to 5.

For “a little sad” pose, you’ll want to tone down the pout a little bit, so make sure to test out different values for the curl and push attributes.

Before you start screenshotting, make sure to click 7 so that the correct lighting is on.

MAKE SURE YOUR ANIMS AREN’T VISIBLE!

AND MAKE SURE YOU'RE IN FRONT_FACE_CAM VIEW!

For “Very Sad” and “A Little Sad”, you will be screenshotting in both the “front face cam” view and the “side view cam”.

To get to the side view cam, right click the camera button and choose “side_view_cam”.

Please go to key 100 on the timeline for “very sad” and go to key 140 on the timeline for “a little sad” to screenshot those poses with the correct label.

Screenshot each pose. Name your screenshots:

    open_mouth_crying.png

    closed_mouth_crying.png

    very_sad.png

    very_sad_side_view

    a_little_sad.png

    a_little_sad_side_view.png

Assignment due at 9:59AM on Monday 7/10 For turn in, submit the following to Collect-It Catalyst: