Optional Assignment



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 those who want some extra review and are interested in taking it to another level, we are giving the opportunity for you to apply what you’ve learned on a different facial rig.

You will be using Corruption, a character from the capstone short film Short Changed. Corruption has a very stylized character design, giving you a chance to challenge yourself and use what you have learned throughout this course on a face that is very different from the one you have been working on.

The rig isn’t too different from the one you’ve been using with Valencia, but we would like you all to figure out and explore the rig yourselves.

For this assignment, you may choose 3 CARDINAL EXPRESSIONS OF YOUR CHOICE.

There are many different ways to express one emotion. Feel free to get creative and explore different types of emotions that we may not have discussed.

Pages 270-280 of Gary’s book has great examples of different expressions. I will be leaving my copy of his book in the lab for you to look at.

Make a new folder in your student folder and label it “optional_assignment”

You can get the maya file for the extra credit template on the course website or

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

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

Once you’ve opened the assignment in Maya, you’ll notice that a neutral expression has been keyed without any labels at frames 0, 40, and 80.

Once you’re done, please screenshot your 3 poses.

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!

Screenshot each pose. Name your screenshots in the following format:

    name_of_expression_1.png

    name_of_expression_2.png

    name_of_expression_3.png

For example:

bittersweet_smile

very_frightened

suppressed_sadness

Assignment due at 9:59AM on Wednesday 7/19 For turn in, submit the following to Collect-It Catalyst: