Game Character

Development
with Maya
Antony Ward

New Riders Games

New Riders
1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710

Game Character Development with Maya

Antony Ward
Copyright 2005 by Antony Ward
Published by New Riders. For information on New Riders Games books, contact:
New Riders
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 524-2178
Fax: (510) 524-2221
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Editors: Kate McKinley, Linda Harrison
Production Editor: Lisa Brazieal
Technical Editors: Phelan Sykes, Charles Shami, Jared Fry
Copy Editor: Carol Henry
Interior design: Frances Baca
Compositor: Owen Wolfson
Indexer: Karin Arrigoni
Cover design and illustration: Aren Howell
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ISBN 0-7357-1438-X
98765432
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I would like to dedicate this book firstly to my wife, Jade.

Her continued support and understanding has been
amazing, not just throughout the creation of this book
but in the eight years we have been together.
The second dedication is to our children: Jacob, currently
18 months old, and our new baby who is growing as we
speak and scheduled to make an appearance around
January 2, 2005.
I love you all!

Acknowledgements
The actual idea of writing a book hadnt even entered my mind until a friend of
mine, Mat Buckland (author of Programming Game AI By Example), suggested
I give it a go. So if it werent for a chance conversation with him, this book might
never have been written.
Being a new author, I was a bit wary when I began this venture, but New Riders
took me by the hand and guided me through the whole process, making it easy
for me to concentrate on getting the information across to you readers.
Over the course of the books creation, I have worked with so many wonderful
peoplepeople who have shared my vision in creating a book for those who
want to make great characters for games. So to all the people I havent mentioned
here, you have not been forgotten, and thanks for your time and help.
My first contact with New Riders was with Elise Walter, whom I bugged constantly
while my proposal was being scrutinized.
Next came my editors, Linda Harrison and then Kate McKinley. Both have
been my guardian angels, going above and beyond to make this book the best
it could be.
Technical editors Phelan Sykes, Charles Shami, and Jared Fry provided invaluable
comments and advice. I have learned a lot from you all.
Toward the end of the process came copyeditor Carol Henry, who took each
chapter and smoothed it out for me, ironing out all the creases and making it an
easier read. Then Owen Wolfson went to heroic lengths to pull it all together and
make it look like a book.
Finally, thank you, the reader, for buying this book. I hope you get as much out
of reading it as I did writing it.

Contents At a Glance

Contents At a Glance
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Chapter 1

Designing Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2

Modeling Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 3

Finishing and Refining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 4

Modeling Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Chapter 5

Model Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Chapter 6

Deformation Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Chapter 7

Modeling Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Chapter 8

Texture Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Chapter 9

Texture Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Chapter 10

Levels of Detail (LODs). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Chapter 11

Skeleton Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Chapter 12

Character Rigging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Chapter 13

Facial Animation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Chapter 14

Final Character Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

Chapter 15

Finalize and Clean Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693

Chapter 16

Animating for Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Appendix A

Normal Mapping in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

Appendix B

Reference and Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781

vi

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Chapter 1

Designing Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What Makes a Successful Character? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Three Stages of Concepting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A Sample Character History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Technical Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Your Early Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Creating the Model Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 2

Modeling Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Artwork Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Preparing the Work Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Getting Started in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Mayas Learning Movies and Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Navigating with Menu Sets, Marking Menus, and The Hotbox. . . . . . . . . .32
Setting up Maya Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Importing to Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Working with the Layer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
Building a Placeholder Character. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Basic Limb Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
Create the Right Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Finishing the Head, Neck, and Torso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
Cleaning Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
The Basic Shape for Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Limbs and Torso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Stitching Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Head and Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
Feet and Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

Table of Contents

Other Body Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

The Morgue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Chapter 3

Finishing and Refining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Muscle Line Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
The Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Collarbones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93
The Chest and Shoulders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94
The Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96
The Stomach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98
The Pelvis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
The Buttocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
The Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Face and Upper Body Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
The Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
The Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Armpit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
The Navel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Building a Finger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Creating All the Fingers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
The Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Hand Resolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Attaching the Hand to the Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Attaching the Foot to the Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Chapter 4

Modeling Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Creating Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Inner Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Outer Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
The Front Hairline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Adding Volume to the Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Developing the Left Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Organizing the Strips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Refining the Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Quick Cleanup with the Outliner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

vii

viii

Table of Contents

Modeling the Ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Attaching the Ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Modeling the Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Developing the Inner Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
The Teeth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
The Tongue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Adding the Inner Mouth Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Inner Cheeks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Dressing Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Crop Top Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Separating the Jeans from the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Creating the Sash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Creating the Jeans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Belt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Chapter 5

Model Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Deciding What to Remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Finding the Polygon Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Arm Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Torso Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Waist and Leg Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Foot Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Hair, Face, and Neck Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
The Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
The Face and Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Current Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Hand Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Final Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Chapter 6

Deformation Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

The Arms and Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Setting Up the Arm Skeleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Skeleton Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Painting Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Adding Polygons to the Elbow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Shoulder Weight Painting and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Table of Contents

The Lower Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Setting Up the Lower Body Skeleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Lower Torso Weight Painting and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Knee Weight Painting and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Foot Weight Painting and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Face Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Chapter 7

Modeling Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

The Torso and Limbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Stitching Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Arm Position Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Creating Graes Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Attaching the Head. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Muscle Line Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
The Chest, Shoulder, and Arm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
The Torso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
The Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Adding Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Body Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Leg Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
The Foot, with Three Toes and Claws. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Creating Graes Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Arm Detail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Giving Grae a Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Modeling the Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Head and Inner Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Main Body and Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Deformation Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Joint Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Joint Renaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Binding and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Chapter 8

Texture Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Mapping Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Dividing a Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

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Table of Contents

Mapping UVs: The Checker Map Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Create the Checkered Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Arm UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Torso UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Lower Body UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Head UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Hair UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Hand UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Belt UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Extra Mapping Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Exporting the UV Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Recombine the Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Mapping Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Chapter 9

Texture Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Image Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
The Base Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Viewing the Texture in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Texture Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Lighter Shades and Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Darker Shades and Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Final Texture Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Face. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Waist Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Jeans Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Tattoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Inner Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Working with an Alpha Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Creating the Hair Alpha Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Viewing the Alpha Map in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Preparing the Eyes Alpha Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Creating the Eyes Alpha Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Creating the Eyelash Alpha Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
Creating the Alpha Map for the Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Bump and Specularity Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Graes Texture Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Kilas Texture Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Table of Contents

Topology Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Polygon Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Triangulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Texture Bit Depth and Page Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Page Size Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Chapter 10

Levels of Detail (LODs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Why Do We Need LODs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Setting the Binding Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Arm Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Finger Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
Generating LODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
LOD 2: 3000 Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
LOD 3: 1000 Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
LOD 4: 500 Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
LOD 5: 150 Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Graes LODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Testing LODs: The Level of Detail Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Chapter 11

Skeleton Setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

The Base Skeletons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Options for Joint Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Kilas Skeletal Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
Graes Skeletal Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Additional Joints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Eyes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Kilas Chest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Kilas Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Graes Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Joint Cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Checking the Rotational Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Repositioning the Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

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Chapter 12

Character Rigging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Why Use Controls? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Icon Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
Forward Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
IK Solvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Arm and Hand Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Arm Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Arm IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Wrist Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Finger Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Leg and Feet Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Basic Control Feet for Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Additional Foot Controls for Kila . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Basic Control Feet for Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Additional Foot Controls for Grae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Main Body Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Hips and Spine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Waist Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Upper Body Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Clavicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
More Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Eyes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Kilas Chest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Hair and Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Visibility Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Color Coding for Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Chapter 13

Facial Animation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Joint-Based Facial Animation Setup (Kila) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
Joint Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Preparation and Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Joint Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Facial Rig (Kila) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Rig Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Rig Creation, Main Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Rig Creation, Mouth Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Rig Creation, Eyebrows and Eyelids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Table of Contents

Blend Shapes Facial Animation Setup (Kila) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637

Preparation for Blend Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Generating Face Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Blend Shape Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Facial Animation and LODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Graes Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648
Which Is Best? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Chapter 14

Final Character Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

Preparation and Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Painting Kilas Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Arm Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Hand Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Leg and Waist Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Head and Neck Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673
Main Body Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676
Mirroring Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
Hair Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Final Rig Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Level of Detail Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
Painting Graes Weights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692

Chapter 15

Finalize and Clean Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693

Scene Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Make Your Rig Idiot-Proof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Character Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 16

694
696
703
707

Animating for Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Animation Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710
Mirroring Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Dividing Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Skeleton and Animation Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Animation Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Idle and Fidget Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Cycle Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

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Four-Stage Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

Blending Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Custom Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Cinematic Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

The Animation List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714

Defining the Rest Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
Animation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Animation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Setting Keyframes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718
The Graph Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Dope Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724
Playblast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726
Creating a Walk Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Scene Preparation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Legs and Waist: Blocking Out Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730
Legs and Waist: Refinement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736
Torso Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747
Arm and Clavicle Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752
Running in Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Animation Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763
Appendix A

Normal Mapping in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
Generating a Normal Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
Viewing Normal Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771

Appendix B

Reference and Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

Anatomy Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776
Animation Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Web Sites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Anatomy Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Miscellaneous References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
Computer Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Maya Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780
Graphics Tablets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781

Introduction
Every few years, another new game console or computer system is
released that is more powerful than its predecessors. With this increase
in power comes better graphics capabilities. This lifts the game artists
restrictions, giving them freedom to add more detail to their geometry.
But it also adds pressure to create yet more detailed and visually stunning
characters, not only on paper but also in the game engine.
As the emphasis on graphics grows, so does the size of the development
team needed to create a single game. Back in the early 1980s, a team
comprised a single programmer who would no doubt create his or her
own graphicsall that was needed were simple shapes formed from a few
pixels on screen. Todays gamers demand much more from their games
and, as a result, team sizes can run into the hundreds.

xv

xvi

Introduction

With teams becoming so large, good organization is very important, and

smaller subteams usually are formed to cover specific areas. On the art side, you
will often have three primary teams: characters, environment, and animation.
Possibly another, smaller team would cover the front endthe main startup
menu, the onscreen display, and so on.
If you desire to join a character team, this book is just for you. As you work your
way through each chapter, you will learn the processes of generating an in-game
character, from concept to modeling, optimization, texturing, rigging, and finally
animating. Along the way youll be introduced to the Maya interface and its
many tools.

Why Maya?
But why Maya? I hear you ask. Surely 3D Studio Max is the more dominant
3D application in the games industry. There was a time when this was true, but
Maya is fast becoming the industry standard.
In 2002 Maya was used to create six of the top ten best-selling PlayStation 2
titles. Characters in the Tomb Raider series, Jak and Daxter, Legend of Zelda,
and Halo 2 have all been lovingly crafted using Mayas extensive toolset. A recent
Alias Systems press release states that in an independent survey performed by
Acacia Research, 46 percent of North American games development studios said
they used Maya. Within the top eight studios in Japan, 50 percent of their 3D
software licenses are now Maya licenses.
All over the world, games development studios are turning to Maya. In North
America, Infinity Ward, Ion Storm, Sony Computer Entertainment, Polyphony,
Nintendo, Namco, and Square-Enix, to name but a few, have made the transition. In Europe, Digital Illusions, Blitz Games, Bizarre Creations, Lionhead
Studios, and Electronic Arts all utilize Maya as the main tool for creating artwork
for their games.
As you can see, more and more companies are switching to Maya, and this is
mainly due to its continued focus on the games development market. This focus
shows resultswith each new release of Maya comes more features geared
toward games development.

Why I Wrote This Book

Why I Wrote This Book

Back when I started out in the games industry, there was nothing to refer to.
You had only your own enthusiasm and desire to create interactive entertainment. In the run up to achieving my first position, I spent weeks working away
on my Amiga 1200, drawing 2D graphics and creating animations for games
I had designed myself. These graphics won me a position at a company called
Freestyle Software, a place that gave me a chance and set my foot on the ladder
of this industry.
There were no books or Web sites then about how to create games, so you had to
be disciplined enough to teach yourself the latest 2D package or, as time went by,
the current 3D package. Now there is a wealth of knowledge available, so getting
into the industry is a little more difficult due to the intense competition. Today
you have to prove you have a good understanding of the tasks involved in creating game-related artwork. Here in this book Ill share some insider knowledge
and techniques that will enable you to get a leg up into the games industry.
As the games market has grown over the years, the developers job has become
more recognized as a true career path and not just a hobby. Universities now
offer courses dedicated to games programming, artwork, and animation. But
there is still a shortage of books on the subject. Plenty of books have been written
about creating high-resolution characters for films, but only a scarce few cover
the restrictions involved in working with game models, and there are none that
cover creating console resolution models from concept through to animation.
Not everyone gets the opportunity to further his or her education formally; this
is why I want to share what Ive learned over the past eleven years. I am not saying
that my methods are perfect, and theres no requirement that you have to work
this way. Im simply showing you how I work. With that information, you can
branch out and form your own, improved techniques.

xvii

xviii

Introduction

About This Book

To the seasoned game artist, some of the structure of this book may be unexpected.
Once you know the basic fundamentals of game character development, all the
different stages tend to blur into just a few. When you know what to look out for
early onwhere polygons should be placed so the character deforms correctly,
and so forthyou can preempt what would normally be done further down the
line. I have tried to separate each step of the character development process into
its own chapter, to help you, the reader, learn and understand each individual
stage. Once youve worked through the book and gained some experience, youll
find the boundaries of each section merging into a continuous process.
You may also wonder about the scope of the book; it covers a great deal. Those
actually employed in the games industry tend to work in one specialized area,
such as modeling, texturing, rigging, or animation. To date I have worked for five
companies, and at each I have been called upon to perform a number of tasks.
Its sometimes just not economical to employ five people to cover five separate
areas, when one or two can cover them all just as easily. From my experience, you
are less likely to be offered a position if you are not flexible in your skills. Yes,
specialize in one area if you like, such as character or game world development,
but learn what you can about every stage. You will no doubt be called upon at
some time to perform a task thats not in your job description, so its helpful to
have at least some of the relevant knowledge.
All that said, if you already have a development studio in your sights, its best to
check out how they work so that you can focus your skills accordingly.

In the Lesson Filesxix

On the Included in the Lesson Files

Supplied with this book are downloadable Lesson Files that will work with
both Windows and Mac systems. Throughout the book, keystrokes that are different on each platform are expressed in Windows/Mac format (for instance,
Shift+Ctrl/Cmd).
The Lesson Files contain many tools and files associated with the books contents. There are four primary directories: Maya, Morgue, Project Files, and
Software. The following sections describe these directories and give instructions
for loading and setting them up.
The scripts available in the Maya/Scripts directory are free, shareware tools and are not necessary for working through this book. The shelf,
however (found in Maya/Shelves), is an important part of the books projects
and should be installed following the instructions below.
Maya/Scripts/CreatureTools_v5

Creature Tools is an automated character rigging and animation system for

Maya. With Creature Tools installed, you will be able to generate a full skeleton
and rig for your character in seconds.
Inside this directory you will find two subdirectories labeled Manual and Scripts.
Place all the files found in the Scripts directory into your My Documents/
maya/6.0/scripts folder (for Mac: {home}/Library/Preferences/Alias/maya/
scripts). Replace the 6.0 in this path with the version number of Maya you are
currently running; if youre using the PLE included on the CD (described in
Software just below), its 6.0PLE.
When you start Maya, youll see a new menu called Creature Tools; if it doesnt
appear, open the script editor and type crToolsMenu to load Creature Tools
manually.
For information on how to use Creature Tools, refer to the manual found in the
Manual directory.

xx

Introduction

Maya/Scripts/Misc

In this directory you will find a selection of scripts that I use regularly. To install
these, simply place them into your My Documents/maya/6.0/scripts folder (for
Mac: {home}/Library/Preferences/Alias/maya/scripts). Here again, you need to
change the 6.0 in the path to match your Maya version.
To run the scripts, type the filename (without the .mel extension) into the script
editor and press Enter.

instanceSplit.mel converts instanced objects into unique ones.

notePad.mel places a note into the current scene. When the scene is
reloaded, notes are displayed to remind you or a colleague of anything you
have put into the scene.

showMaterial.mel is a handy little program that opens the Attribute Editor,

displaying the material assigned to the selected face. This saves you the effort
of searching through the Hypershadea useful shortcut if your scene has
hundreds of textures.

resBatch.mel simply alters the way your textures are displayed in Mayas
views. It scales the size of all the textures, not physically but temporarily,
speeding up the real-time display as you work.

Maya/Shelves

Please make sure you install this shelf (shelf_GCDM.mel) before you begin
working with the projects in this book. It contains tools that are usefuland
sometimes essentialfor completing the example tasks.
Copy the shelf_GCDM.mel file into your My Documents/maya/6.0/prefs/shelves
directory (for Mac: {home}/Library/Preferences/Alias/maya/6.0/prefs/shelves).
A new Shelf called GCDM will be available the next time you launch Maya.
Morgue

In The Morgue you will find a selection of files taken straight from my own
library. Feel free to use these to help develop your own skills and characters, but
they are not available for commercial use.

In the Lesson Filesxxi

Project Files

All of the Maya and texture files you will need for the books projects can be
found in the Project Files directory. Each subdirectory name corresponds to the
associated chapter number.
Software

You dont actually need your own version of Maya to work through this book,
because in the Lesson Files we have included the Personal Learning Edition
(PLE), a free version of Maya. Although it is essentially the same application as
the full version of Maya, the PLE does have some restrictions. For example, you
can load the .mb files supplied on the CD, but you are only able to save them as
.mp, meaning they will only work with the PLE.
Refer to Mayas help directory found in Help > Maya Help (F1) for further details
on the differences between the full and PLE versions of Maya.
If you would like to keep completely up to date with the PLE, you can download
the absolutely latest version from the Alias Web site; youll find a link on the CD.
In addition, the Lesson Files contain a link to the Adobe Web sites download
page. Here you will find a demo version of Photoshop. Of course, if you already
have a graphics program youre comfortable with, feel free to use that.
Now that you know the wheres and whys about this book and you have your
environment set up, lets move on and dive into the world of Game Character
Development with Maya.

This page intentionally left blank

CD Files

CHAPTER 4

Modeling
Details

Kila_Feet.mb
Kila_Hair.mb
Kila_Ear_01.mb
Kila_Ear_02.mb
Kila_InnerMouth.mb
Kila_Head.mb
Kila_Complete.mb
KilaFront.jpg
KilaSide.jpg
KilaFaceFront.jpg
KilaFaceSide.jpg

WE A R E R E A L LY moving along with Kilathe end is in sight. In

this chapter we will give our characters head some important details:
hair, eyes, ears, and the inner mouth. Then we will work on her clothing,
adding her crop-top T-shirt, and complementing the jeans with a sash
and belt.

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Modeling Details

Creating Hair
You are probably looking at your character and thinking, She doesnt look much
like what shes supposed to. Her lack of hair is the main reason for Kilas
unexciting appearance right now; you will be surprised at how much interest a
hairdo adds to a characters overall look.
Lets start work on giving Kila some hair, by first loading the file you last worked
on, Kila_Feet.mb. Look at the original concept artwork, or the image planes, and
youll see that her hair is not fully symmetrical, so we will, to an extent, need to
model the whole coiffure. Her hair is parted down the center, so what we can do
is model one-half of the hairdo, then duplicate and mirror it, and edit the copy
to have the slightly different look of the other half.
To begin, lets remove some of the polygons from around the back of the head,
the ones that will not be seen. Using Figure 4.1 as a guide, mark in the hairline
using the Split Polygon tool, and then delete the unwanted polygons.
You will only need to work on one side of the model as the other is
merely a mirrored instance.

FIGURE 4.1

Mark the hairline and then remove the polygons from the back of the head.

We are finished editing the main model now. Carving in the hairline gives us a
starting point for creating the hair. Well begin with the inner layerthe hair
lying closest to her face and head.

Creating Hair

Inner Layer

We want the hair to look layered, giving it some depth. To create this effect, we
will use strips of polygons starting at the hairline and building our way out.
1

Create a new polygonal plane like the one seen in Figure 4.2, by going to
Create > Polygon Primitives > Plane and opening up the options window.
Set the configuration to Width 0.02, Height 0.15, Subdivisions Along Width
1, and Subdivisions Along Height 5.

Create a
new polygonal plane.

FIGURE 4.2

Move the new plane, matching it up to the polygons on the side of the head
as shown in Figure 4.3. Duplicate the plane and position the new copy next
to the original while trying to stay between the two vertices on the head, so
the width of the strip matches the width of the polygon underneath it.

FIGURE 4.3

Position the planes to create the bottom layer of her hair.

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Modeling Details

Continue duplicating and positioning strips until you have five of them
placed around the head. Remember, we are only working on half of the head
for now, so dont place the strips all the way around.

We now have our innermost strips for the hair; next we will create the outer layer
that starts at the top of her head and drapes over the inner layer of hair. With
these two areas in place, we can create other strips to place in between, amplifying the layered effect we are after.
Outer Layer

Start work on the outermost layer of hair.

1

Duplicate one of the current strips, position it at the top of the head, and
rotate it by 90 degrees (Figure 4.4). Make sure the top of the strip lies at the
same position as the center of the model; this point will act as the part in
her hair.

FIGURE 4.4

Add a new plane above the head and curve it to follow the shape of the head.

Edit this strip, bending it to follow the shape of her head. You will notice in
Figure 4.4 that the strip is too short. It does need to be longer, so select the
edge nearest the bottom and use the Extrude Edge tool to add three more
divisions.

Creating Hair

FIGURE 4.5

Duplicate the top strip to create the top of her hair.

As demonstrated in Figure 4.5, duplicate the new strip several times, until
you have filled out the top, side, and back of the left side of her head.

Looking from the side, the hair seems very flat. Manipulate each strip individually, altering the position and scale to make the hair higher at the crown
than in the front (Figure 4.6).

Move and scale

the strips to lift her hair at the
crown.

FIGURE 4.6

Time to do a bit of tidying up. In the perspective view, look down onto your
hair geometry; it should look like mine in the left panel of Figure 4.7a bit of
a mess. Before moving on, combine the upper parts of the strips and weld some
of the vertices around the top, trying for the result shown on the right in Figure
4.7. Dont work all the way down the strips; just concentrate on the top five rows
of vertices for now.

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Modeling Details

FIGURE 4.7

Tidy up at the crown of her head by welding some of the vertices.

We now have the base geometry in place for the top of her hair. Create a mirrored instance to use as reference, and youll see something like Figure 4.8 (left).
Take some time now to work on the shape a little more. It may help to snap the
vertices together between the strips, but do not weld them yet. Aim for something like Figure 4.8 (right).

FIGURE 4.8

Spend some time shaping the upper portion of her hair.

Creating Hair

The Front Hairline

Lets now create the front hairline, filling in the gap between her forehead and
hair. Remove the mirrored instance of the hair for now so we can concentrate on
just one side.
1

First, hide the top layer of hair by selecting it and pressing Ctrl+H/Cmd+H.
Leave the underneath visible because you will need it for this part of the
modeling.

Duplicate one of the side strips and position it above her forehead, following
the example in the middle panel of Figure 4.9.

FIGURE 4.9

Add a new strip above the forehead.

Adjust the vertices until you have the arrangement shown in the right panel
of Figure 4.9, snapping the lower vertices to the ones on the top of her forehead.

Bring back the geometry that makes up the top of her hair by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+H/Cmd+Shift+H. Now snap the upper vertices of this newly
added forehead strip to the front section of her hair (Figure 4.10).

157

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Modeling Details

F I G U R E 4 . 1 0 Snap the upper vertices of the forehead strip to the front part of the
outer hair layer.

Now combine both pieces of geometrythe hairline strip and the front
parts of her hairand weld the vertices at the front, making a single, solid
object.

To complete the front hairline area, you need to hide the rest of the model,
making just the hair visible. This time, instead of selecting all the geometry
and pressing Ctrl+H/Cmd+H to hide it, we can simply isolate the hair.
To do this, select the upper piece of hair and go to the Show menu of the
active view. Move down to Isolate Selected, and choose View Selected. You
should now be presented with just the top layer of hair, as shown in the left
panel of Figure 4.11.
The Isolate Select command is very useful. For example, you can
isolate components such as a selection of faces rather than whole objects.

7 Continuing on, you need to extrude the lower edge at the temple (Figure

4.11, middle). This edge must be brought down to meet the bottom of her
hair (Figure 4.11, right).

Creating Hair

FIGURE 4.11

Isolate the top layer of hair and extend the front.

Weld the side vertices of the extrusion to the first row of vertices closest
to them on the existing hair, and then adjust the vertices to create a better
shape (Figure 4.12).

F I G U R E 4 . 1 2 Weld the bottom vertices and then adjust

the shape.

Adding Volume to the Hair

Un-isolate the geometry so you can see the face and head again. You do this exactly
the same way as you did earlier to isolate it: Choose Show > Isolate Select >
View Selected, so that it is unchecked.
Now we will give the outer layer of hair some more shape, getting rid of the
dome it currently resembles. After that, well work on the rest of the hair, filling
it out and thickening it to give it more volume.

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Modeling Details

As shown in Figure 4.13 on the left, select the bottom row of edges and collapse them.
Because you did not weld the vertices on the lower areas of the strips, when
you collapse the edges they will form spikes as illustrated on the right in
Figure 4.13.

FIGURE 4.13

Collapse the bottom row of edges.

Move up to the next row of edges and, editing each one in turn, scale them
in slightly. Do this for the next row, too, until you have long spikes running
around her hair, as shown in Figure 4.14.

F I G U R E 4 . 1 4 Scale the
edges in, to create long
spikes.

Creating Hair

Apart from some final tweaking, our outer layer is complete. It needs additional
work, moving the vertices to randomize the shape, but we wont do that until all
the basic geometry is in place. Now we must fill out the hair, making it appear
thicker, giving it more volume.
3

Using the strips on the inside layer, do as you did with the outer ones. Select
the bottom edges and collapse them, then adjust the upper edges until you
have long, sharp polygons.

Duplicate these edited inner strips, creating a total of 17, and position them
between the outer layer and the head.

When youre finished working on this side of the head, you can create a mirrored
version to see how the hair is looking overall. Begin by selecting all the pieces
of geometry that make up the hair on Kilas left side. Press Ctrl+G/Cmd+G to
group them. Open up the Duplicate options, make sure that Instance is not
selected, and click Duplicate or Apply to create a mirrored duplicate of the group
(setting the Scale value for the X-axis to 1).
Kilas coiffure should now resemble Figure 4.15. For now, the hair shape is
acceptable. It still needs more work, but lets leave it for now and go on to create
the left side of the hairdo (Kilas right). It will be different from the right side.

F I G U R E 4 . 1 5 Fill out the hair

with additional pointy strips.

161

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Modeling Details

Developing the Left Side

The hair on Kilas right side hangs down, but on the other side the hair is tucked
behind the left ear. To start developing this side of the hairdo, first hide the inner
strips so you can concentrate on the outer layer of hair (Figure 4.16).

F I G U R E 4 . 1 6 Prepare the
hair for more work by hiding
the inner layer on Kilas left.

Select the vertices shown in Figure 4.17b, and weld them all together until
you are left with a single vertex (Figure 4.17c).

FIGURE 4.17

The steps for tucking the hair behind the ear

Move this remaining vertex up to roughly the spot where the top of the ear
should be. Then proceed to work on refining this area of the hairdo until the
tucked-in look is correct (Figure 4.17d).

Combine both the left and right sides that make up the top, outer layer of
her hairdo.

Creating Hair

Bring back the inner-layer strips you hid earlier, adjusting them to fit the
new tucked-in arrangement. You will have to delete some of the strips that
no longer fit the shape.

At this point, you have basic geometry in place to use for Kilas hair. Keep working on it until you are happy with the overall shape.
Organizing the Strips

To keep things in order, we will now organize the strips used to fill in the hair,
combining them into individual horseshoe-shaped layers. In this arrangement,
not only will they be easier to work on, but applying a texture to them will be
less difficult.
1

Hide everything except the strips of hair (Figure 4.18).

F I G U R E 4 . 1 8 Hide everything except the strips of

hair.

Switch to the top view so you are looking down on the strips (Figure 4.19,
left). It looks like I got a bit carried away, rotating the strips to fit. First, using
the Rotate manipulator, alter the rotations so the strips appear as flat lines in
the top view. You will find that the same axis needs altering for each strip.

163

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Modeling Details

FIGURE 4.19

We want to move the strips so they follow a more organized structure.

Position all the strips so they follow a curve, making three concentric curves
in total. Add more strips if you need them to complete the curves.

Combine the strips that make up each curve so that you end up with three
separate horseshoe-shaped objects (Figure 4.19, right).

Switch to the perspective view and isolate the outermost section of hair. All
you should be able to see is that particular piece of the geometry (Figure
4.20, left).

FIGURE 4.20

Level off the top and adjust the vertices to tidy up the geometry.

Creating Hair

Scale the top row of vertices down the Y axis so that they all lie on the same
level. Just using the basic Scale manipulator is sufficient here because you
do not need to have an exact scale. Then weld them all together, making a
complete strip running around the top. Do this again for the next row down.
As needed, adjust the remaining strips to tidy up the rest of the geometry.
Figure 4.20 (right) shows what youre aiming for.

Repeat these welding steps for the other two, inner layers until you have
something close to whats shown in Figure 4.21.

FIGURE 4.21

Weld all the

layers strips.

Now unhide the rest of Kila to see how things are looking. As you can see in
Figure 4.22, Ive started to shape the outer hair somewhat, by curling the ends
up very slightly and refining the overall shape. Notice that I have added another
strip for a loose strand at the right temple.

F I G U R E 4 . 2 2 Current view
of Kila with hair

165

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Modeling Details

Refining the Hair

To complete Kilas hair we will now spend some time working on the inner-layer
strips, bending the bottoms out to follow the strands in the outer layer. Well also
add some more volume by twisting the strips at the bottom.
Because we have been working in layers, the first step is easy. On the first inner
layer, select the lower row of vertices and globally scale them outward. Move up
to the next row and do the same. Continue this process on the other inner rows,
curling the hair slightly outward at the bottom.
To fill the hair out a little and thicken it up, we now need to twist each strip
slightly, like turning the slats of a venetian blind.
1

Select every other edge on each strip (Figure 4.23, left and middle). Then
scale them across the X and Y axes, bringing them in toward the middle as
shown in Figure 4.23 (right). Select only the bottom two edges of each strip;
do not scale the top.

FIGURE 4.23

Twist each strip to fill out the hair.

Repeat this process on the next layer, this time selecting the opposite edges
so that the effect will be reversed.

Finally, scale the third layer in the same way as the first.

All the refinement work left to do now is to work on the overall shape, trying to
fill in any large gaps between the strands of her hair. Take a look at Figure 4.24
to see an example of the end result.

Creating Hair

F I G U R E 4 . 2 4 Work on the
overall shape of Kilas hair.

For now, do not combine all the elements that make up the hair. Just clean up
the scene and save your work as Kila_Hair.mb.
Quick Cleanup with the Outliner

If you open up your Outliner, you may notice that a lot of groups and empty
nodes are starting to appear; you can also see these in Figure 4.25a. Most of these
elements are unnecessary and only bump up the file size. Lets clean them up.

A
FIGURE 4.25

Use the Outliner to clean up your scene.

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Modeling Details

Start by selecting in the Perspective view all the pieces of geometry you want
to keep, and press Ctrl+G/Cmd+G to put them into a group. Figure 4.25b
shows the new group named group3.
The easiest way to select what you want to keep is to drag a selection
lasso over all of the geometry in the view.

In the Outliner, click and hold the middle mouse button on the new group,
and move it up until it exists in the world root (that is, outside of any other
groups), as seen in Figure 4.25c. As you move the group over another object,
two lines will appear above and below the object; these indicate that if you
let go of the mouse now, the group will be placed within this object. If a
single line appears, it indicates that letting go of the mouse button here will
leave the group in the world root.

You know that youve included everything you need in group3, so you can
now select the other bits and pieces as shown in Figure 4.25d and delete
them.
Obviously, its very unlikely that the items in your Outliner will exactly
match the ones in Figure 4.25, but this does not matter. In deciding what
can be deleted, just look for items similar to the ones highlighted that are
outside the group3 group.

You may also notice that a few new cameras have popped up (persp1 and
persp2, for example)the result of our having imported items earlier. Select
and delete these. Do not delete the four main cameras (persp, top, front, and
side), but feel free to remove any others.

Finally, rename group3 to Kila and save.

Modeling the Ear

So now weve finished off the hair. Our next step is to create an ear to place on
the left side of Kilas head.
Before you start to model the ear, find a decent picture of an ear on the
Internet or in an anatomy book. This will help you create an accurate model (or
texture, depending on how the ear will be represented).

Modeling the Ear

Start with a new scene, and create the cube in Figure 4.26 using the following configuration: Width 0.5, Height 1.5, Depth 1, Subdivisions Along
Width 1, Subdivisions Along Height 5, and Subdivisions Along Depth 2.

F I G U R E 4 . 2 6 Create a basic
cube, five divisions high.

F I G U R E 4 . 2 7 Manipulate the cube until it

resembles an ear.

Using your reference, shape the cube to achieve the basic shape of an ear.
Work on it from the side and then the front, and finally in the perspective
view until you are happy with it (Figure 4.27).

Before saving this version, remove some of the polygons from behind the
ear, as seen in Figure 4.28.

F I G U R E 4 . 2 8 Remove the
polygons from the back of
the ear.

Delete the history and save this as Kila_Ear_01.mb, so you can use this version later if you choose.

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Modeling Details

We could quite happily use the ear in its present state, allowing the texture to
show the detailespecially if we need to keep within our polygon budget. For
the purposes of this tutorial, however, we will work on it a little more to show
how to develop a more detailed ear in case we need one. Enhancing the ear is a
simple case of cutting the details into the mesh using the Split Polygon tool, and
then working on the geometry to achieve a satisfactory shape.
5

Divide the front of the ear, following the lines in Figure 4.29, left. Work on
the entire front area until the ear is satisfactory (Figure 4.29, right). There is
no need to put in every detail, since most of this can be achieved in the texture.

Delete the history and save this ear as Kila_Ear_02.mb.

F I G U R E 4 . 2 9 Add detail to
the ear by first splitting the
polygons.

Attaching the Ear

Now we have two ear models (one slightly more detailed than the other). For
now, we are going to attach the higher-resolution version. When we come to
optimize the mesh, we can reduce it if we need the polygons. Make sure you have
both ears saved, and then load Kila_Hair.mb again.
1

Before you begin to attach the ear, you need to make the head whole. At the
moment you only have one-half; the second, right side is simply an instance.
Delete the instanced mesh and focus in on the head. Its probably best to isolate the mesh, too, so youre only working on the main body.

Modeling the Ear

Select the faces shown in Figure 4.30 (the ones that make up the head and
upper neck).

F I G U R E 4 . 3 0 Select the
head and upper neck, and
detach the faces using the
Extract tool.

To separate these pieces from the main mesh, go to Edit Polygons > Extract
and open up the options. Make sure Separate Extracted Faces is on, then
click Extract. The head will now be separated from the rest of the body.

What we need to do now is duplicate this half, mirror it, and merge all the vertices down the center. There is a simple way to do thisuse the Polygons > Mirror
Geometry tool.
4

Open up the options for the Polygons > Mirror Geometry tool and, as seen
in Figure 4.31, make sure X is selected, as well as Merge With The Original
and Merge Vertices. Click Mirror to apply the tool.

FIGURE 4.31

The Mirror
Geometry tool
options

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Modeling Details

You should now have a full head with all the vertices welded nicely down
the center; the last thing to do is smooth out the crease that runs down the
middle of her head.
5

Import the ear we were working on earlier (Kila_Ear_02.mb) and position it

as shown in Figure 4.32.

FIGURE 4.32

Position the ear without the hair visible;

then adjust the hair
to fit the ear.

Looking at Figure 4.32, we seem to have miscalculated where the hair should
be. We can adjust this now so that the hair lies over and behind the ear (Figure
4.32, right). Now that we know how the hair and ear should look, we can more
capably work on this area. Hide the head at this stage so we can concentrate on
the hair and ear.
6

As you can see in Figure 4.33 (left), one of the inner strips of hair is popping
through the ear. Since this is quite close to the face, we can simply delete the
entire strip by selecting its polygons and deleting them (Figure 4.33, right).

As illustrated in Figure 4.34 (left), rotate around so you are looking at the
back of the ear from inside the head.
Press F to focus the camera on the selected object or components.

Modeling the Ear

F I G U R E 4 . 3 3 Remove
the strip that is popping
through the ear.

F I G U R E 4 . 3 4 Fill in the
gaps around the ear by
snapping the vertices
together.

Snap the two vertices belonging to the hair to the two nearest ones on the
top of the ear. Then work your way around, splitting the hair as shown in
Figure 4.34 (right) and leaving no gaps around the top and side of the ear.

Bring back the geometry for the head, and hide the hair. Before using the
same vertex-snapping technique to fill in the gaps between the head and
ear, you must first combine them. As demonstrated in Figure 4.35 (left),
look from inside the head at the ear. Use the Append To Polygons tool to
fill in the gap, making a seamless join between the head and the ear (Figure
4.35, right).

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Modeling Details

FIGURE 4.35

Attach the ear to the head by creating polygons to fill in the gap.

10 Work on the ear until the shape is satisfactory on all sides. For a start, you

can collapse the edges at the front of the ear. These are highlighted in Figure
4.36 (left). Keep working until you achieve the model illustrated in Figure
4.36 (right).

FIGURE 4.36

Work on the ear until you are happy with the entire shape.

Modeling the Eyes

As you can see in Figure 4.37, the outer head is now complete. All we need to do
to finish it is test to see how it deforms, and optimize itboth of which we will
cover in later chapters.

F I G U R E 4 . 3 7 The outer
head is complete.

Modeling the Eyes

If your game uses many real-time cut-scenes, chances are your character will
need facial animation. The eyes play a huge part in acting; we are all drawn to
the eyes when we interact with people.
Eyes are relatively easy to construct; all you need to do is create a sphere and
optimize it slightly. You may have noticed that our model already has some
spheres where the eyes should be. These were used earlier to create the eyelids,
and we did not delete them. To demonstrate how to create the eyes, we will
remove these spheres and start from scratch.
1

Create a new polygonal sphere with its Subdivisions Around Axis and
Subdivisions Along Height both set to 8 (Figure 4.38a).

As demonstrated in Figure 4.38b, remove the back half of the sphere.

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Modeling Details

Select the edges that lie down the center of the sphere, shown in Figure
4.38c, and then collapse them to get the eye shape (Figure 4.38d).

FIGURE 4.38

Optimize a sphere to achieve an eye shape.

Position this sphere so it lies where the left eye should be.

To create the right eye, duplicate the left eye mesh and alter the Translate X
attribute in the Channel Box to be a negative value. For example, if it reads
0.38, make it 0.38.

There we have it; the eyes are done (Figure 4.39). Feel free to save at this point.

FIGURE 4.39

Kila now has eyes.

Developing the Inner Mouth

Developing the Inner Mouth

Cut-scenes can also involve conversation, so the inside of the mouth will need to
be developed to include the teeth and a tongue. Lets begin with her teeth.
The Teeth

Most games just adopt a simple set of teeth consisting of a flat curve of polygons
with a teeth texture on them. This is what we will use for Kilaits unlikely that
she would benefit from a set of fully modeled teeth because we will never get
close enough to see them in detail. Besides, a full set of teeth would increase the
polygon count dramatically.
1

In a new scene, create a new cylinder with the following configuration:

Radius 1, Height 0.4, Subdivisions Around Axis 14, Subdivisions Along
Height 1, and Subdivisions On Caps 1. Your cylinder should look like the
one in the top panel of Figure 4.40.

Remove the top and bottom from the cylinder, as well as five quads from the
back, giving you the shape in Figure 4.40 (bottom).

F I G U R E 4 . 4 0 Create and
edit a basic cylinder.

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Modeling Details

Teeth are never perfectly round, but at the moment our mesh is (Figure
4.41, left). Switch to the top view and scale the geometry to match the shape
illustrated on the right in Figure 4.41.

FIGURE 4.41

Scale the teeth geometry to achieve this shape.

We have our top teeth complete now. To create the bottom set, duplicate the
upper set and position it below. Make sure you scale it in slightly along the X
and Z axes, because a humans bottom teeth are positioned back a little from
the top teeth (Figure 4.42).

F I G U R E 4 . 4 2 Duplicate the
top-teeth mesh and position
it underneath and slightly
back from the original set.

The Tongue

Now that the teeth are done, lets create the tongue.
1

First hide the teeth; we dont need them yet.

Create a cube with the following configuration: Width 0.5, Height 0.2,
Depth 1, Subdivisions Along Width 2, Subdivisions Along Height 2, and
Subdivisions Along Depth 3.

Developing the Inner Mouth

Following the progression in Figure 4.43, adjust the shape so it takes on the
look of a tongue. Scale the upper and lower vertices in slightly in preparation for the next step, in which you will move the front-center ones out a
little.

Select the vertices that lie down the center of the object and move them
down a fraction, creating the crease in the tongue.

FIGURE 4.43

Edit the vertices to sculpt the shape of a tongue.

Rotate the front and the back to curve the tongue.

Make the teeth visible again and position the tongue inside them (Figure
4.44). You may need to scale the tongue further to make it fit properly. In
addition, make sure you delete the faces at the rear of the tongue, as shown
in Figure 4.44 on the right.

FIGURE 4.44

Position the tongue between the teeth.

The teeth and tongue elements are complete, so delete the history and save as
Kila_InnerMouth.mb.

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Modeling Details

Adding the Inner Mouth Elements

We will next merge the inner mouth elements we created (teeth and tongue) into
our character.
1

Load in the last file you were working on (Kila_Hair.mb), and import the
inner mouth elements into the scene.

Scale the geometry down and position it inside her head as shown in Figure
4.45. The upper teeth should just dip down below the bottom lip.

FIGURE 4.45

Import the teeth and tongue into your latest scene and position them behind

the lips.

Double-check the shape of the mouth. If you can see teeth popping through,
then the mouth is not the correct shape. Kilas lips should lie on top of her
teeth.

The Inner Cheeks

Before we finish the mouth area, we need to do one last thing. If Kila were to
open her mouth in its current state, we would see not only her teeth and tongue
but also the back of her head. On some platforms, we would not even see that
we would see straight through the back of her head. Whats needed now is to
create the inside of the mouth, consisting of the top of the throat (upper palette)
and inner cheeks.
1

At present, Kilas lips are sealed shut, so to start you need to cut them open.
As shown in Figure 4.46 (top), focus in on her lips and select the vertices
that run along the opening between the lips.

Developing the Inner Mouth

F I G U R E 4 . 4 6 Split the vertices to create an opening

between the lips.

When youre zooming into your geometry, it may happen that the
camera cuts into the mesh before you get close enough. To fix this, open up
the attributes for the camera by going to View > Camera Attribute Editor, and
reduce the value for Near Clip Plane.

With the vertices selected, go to Edit Polygons > Split Vertex. This will split
up the vertices, un-welding them, so to speak. Now the vertices are all
separate. Select each one in turn and move it up or down, creating a slight
opening in the mouth as shown in Figure 4.46 (bottom). Just remember to
weld them again when you are done.

Hide the teeth and tongue for now. As illustrated in Figure 4.47, select the
edges around the opening of the mouth.

F I G U R E 4 . 4 7 Select the
edges around the opening of
the mouth.

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Modeling Details

Extrude the edges inward, adding two divisions to the extrusion (Figure
4.48a). Do this by setting Divisions to 3 for polyExtrudeEdge1 in the
Channel Box.

Weld together all the vertices at the very end to create a point (Figure
4.48b).

Select the edges on both the top and the bottom of the extrusion, as highlighted in Figure 4.48c.

Collapse these edges (Figure 4.48d).

Bring the center points on the top upward, and the ones below downward,
to create a hollow in the middle.

Optimize the shape by welding the extra vertices to the top and bottom
points (Figure 4.48e).

D
FIGURE 4.48

Create the cavity of the mouth.

Dressing Kila

10 Adjust the vertices to make the cavity larger. Aim for the results shown in

Figure 4.49.

FIGURE 4.49

Enlarge the cavity to envelop the teeth and tongue.

11 Unhide the teeth and check to see that they fit inside the cavity.

We are now finished with the head area and can move on and add some clothing. But first, clean up your scene and save your work as Kila_Head.mb.

Dressing Kila
All game characters wear some sort of outfitmore often than not these will
be weird and wonderful and will require extra polygons. In Kilas case, we have
some relatively simple additions to make. These include adding details to her
crop top and jeans, as well as giving her a belt and a sash that drape her waist.
Crop Top Details

Well enhance Kilas crop top and chest area by adding some cleavage, as well as a
suggestion of a loose overhang at the waistline.
Start with the cleavage area. In the concept drawing, the low-neck top shows a
bit of cleavage. What we need to do is define the neck of her crop top to implement this cleavage.
1

Using the Split Polygon tool, carve in the cuts shown in Figure 4.50 (right).
These will allow us to edit the central area at the top of the cloth that bridges
her breasts.

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Modeling Details

FIGURE 4.50

Cut the polygons.

Smooth out the extra edges you have createdall except the ones that will
mark the top of the fabric. These are highlighted in Figure 4.51 on the left.

Start working on the area, sculpting it to achieve the correct shape. Youre
aiming for the result illustrated in Figure 4.51 on the right.

FIGURE 4.51

The cleavage, before and after

Move the vertices down the center first, pulling them inward, using the side
view to line them up with the curve of her torso (Figure 4.52).

Continue working your way out, smoothing the area, moving downward the
vertex just above the line of the fabric; this creates the crevice. Remember to
convert joining triangles back to quads.

Dressing Kila

F I G U R E 4 . 5 2 Move the central vertices inward so they

are in line with the torso.

Notice in the concept drawing that the crop top is not skin tight, but rather is
slightly loose at the bottom. We want to create this pointed overhang. As shown
in Figure 4.53, well focus in on the middle of her body.

F I G U R E 4 . 5 3 To create a
loose overhang, work on
the area at the middle of the
body.

185

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Modeling Details

Following the lines highlighted in Figure 4.54, cut around the center of the
body. Mark out the base of Kilas crop top, making sure that there are two
parallel cuts encircling the entire body mesh.

FIGURE 4.54

Create two lines across her stomach, outlining the bottom of her crop top.

Scale the top line out and move it down, creating the overhang seen in
Figure 4.55.

F I G U R E 4 . 5 5 Create the
overhang by moving the top
line out and down.

When you created the initial cuts, some small edges will have been created;
these in turn make up small polygons, like the ones in Figure 4.56 (top). It is
best to get rid of these now, cleaning up the area.

Dressing Kila

F I G U R E 4 . 5 6 Remove these
small edges that were created by the cut.

Finally, spend some time smoothing out the general shape of the crop top
(Figure 4.57).

F I G U R E 4 . 5 7 Smooth
out the rest of the crop
top.

With Kilas crop top completed, lets continue on down to the jeans, and the sash
and belt that drape her waist.

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Modeling Details

Separating the Jeans from the Body

Our next clothing task is to model the characters jeans. We could model the left
side and mirror it to create the right, as we did with her upper body. Although
this would save time, it would present a few problems. First, the sash around
her waist cannot be mirrored; it should be built into the waist because it fits
snugly at every point from the waist to the opposite hip. Also, we will be building
creases into the legs of her jeans, so it would be very obvious if we simply mirrored one side to create the other.
Before we begin, we have to separate the jeans from the rest of Kilas body, then
create a duplicate to become the right side, and combine the sides as we did for
her head.
1

Delete the mirrored instance if you have one,

and select the polygons that will make up the
jeans (Figure 4.58). This should be easy because
you marked out the top of them earlier.

Go to Edit Polygons > Extract; this will separate the leg from the body. You should not have
to open up the options and reconfigure them
because they were saved the last time you used
this tool.

Next, you need a mirrored duplicate, so go to

Polygons > Mirror Geometry. Again, you set
the options last time you used this tool, so they
should be at the same settings now. You dont
have to open the options.

Since you only need to work on her legs at this

point, it makes things easier if you hide the rest
of the geometry. So select everything but the
legs and press Ctrl+H/Cmd+H.

Double-check that the vertices down the center

of the legs have merged correctly. If some have
not, weld them now; smooth out the crease, too.

F I G U R E 4 . 5 8 Select the
polygons that will make up
her jeans.

Dressing Kila

Now we have a complete pair of legs and we can begin working in the clothing
details.
Creating the Sash

Because the sash fits snugly all the way around, we can simply mark in the outline so well know where it will be on her form. It is made of thin material, so we
dont need to create an overhang as we did with the T-shirt. Our task with the
sash is to work on the general area, smoothing it out and tidying it up.
Use the Split Polygon tool to mark in the outline for the sash. Follow the lines in
Figure 4.59. I am sure your modeling skills are coming along wonderfully now,
so I will leave this part up to you. Remember to remove any tiny polygons that
have cropped up, and make the area as clean as possible. Your resulting mesh
should resemble Figure 4.60.

FIGURE 4.59

Mark in the outlines for the sash.

F I G U R E 4 . 6 0 Tidy up the
sash, removing unwanted
polygons and creating
smooth lines.

To finish the sash, we will create a couple of folds in the fabric on the outside of
the leg. We can rely on the texture to create most of the folds, but these at the
thigh are quite distinct, so we will build them into the geometry.

189

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Modeling Details

Following Figure 4.61 as a guide, cut the polygons around the outside of her
left thigh. Youll need two cuts for each fold. Follow these cuts around the
leg, spanning two polygons, matching the cuts on the front.

F I G U R E 4 . 6 1 Create more
cuts in the outer thigh and
build in two folds.

Select the vertices on the top of each cut and move them out, creating the
upper part of the fold.

Finally move the lower vertices up slightly to close the gap (Figure 4.61,
bottom).

Creating the Jeans

Continuing on to the jeans now, we

first need to get some idea of the
creases in the jeans at the back of her
knees, and also on the lower legs. You
should have some references for this
already on your style sheet. Better
still, use the original color concept
image (Figure 4.62). You can find
this on the CD: Project Files/01/
KilaColorRender.tif.
F I G U R E 4 . 6 2 Use the color concept image
as reference for the creases in the jeans.

Dressing Kila

Kilas upper thigh area is relatively flat, so we dont need to add any detail here.
Like the folds on the sash, the creases in the jeans can be added when we apply
texture. We can, however, build in some folds around the back of her knees. Move
down to where her knees are; use the guide images to get the correct location.
1

As you did for the folds on the sash, cut the polygons here at the knees to
create two segments (Figure 4.63, left).

FIGURE 4.63

Creating folds in
the denim around
the back of the
knees

Move the top of each segment out and the lower portion up, producing the
two folds you can see in Figure 4.63, bottom. Because we combined the legs
earlier, you will need to do this on each knee.
Moving around to the front of her legs, we will now build in some basic
knees. These will function more toward deformation than for the overall
look of the mesh.

Cut the polygons as shown in

Figure 4.64. Then pull out the
upper section in the middle of
the knee, creating a ridge.

F I G U R E 4 . 6 4 Create a ridge at the front to

act as her knee.

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Modeling Details

Adjust the overall knee areas, scaling

them in slightly to get the correct
shape (Figure 4.65).

Now we get to the lower legs. This area

needs quite a bit of enhancement to
achieve realistic creases and folds.
5

Following the progression in Figure

4.66, begin by creating a cut that
will be the first fold in the jeans leg.
Adjust the vertices around this first
cut to fold the polygons at the front
over the ones at the back. Move
downward, adding in one fold at a
time until you reach the bottom.

FIGURE 4.65

FIGURE 4.66

The knee area is complete.

The steps for adding the folds into the bottom of the jeans leg

Dressing Kila

Rotating around to the back of the leg (Figure 4.67, left), you can see that
not much needs to be added herejust a few creases at the bottom will do
(Figure 4.67, right).

F I G U R E 4 . 6 7 Add creases
at the back of the leg.

Follow these same procedures for the right jeans leg, adding the extra detail
to the lower leg. You can see this progression in Figure 4.68.

FIGURE 4.68

Add creases to the right leg of the jeans.

193

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Modeling Details

When theyre finished, the legs of the jeans should look like Figure 4.69.

FIGURE 4.69

The finished jeans

After all this work, unhide everything and see how she looks. Check out Figure
4.70, left. Her feet seem wrong. They are shaped oddly; plus they are pointing
forward. We want them to be pointing out slightly, as real feet do naturally.

FIGURE 4.70

Make a small adjustment to the shoes and the position of the feet.

Work a little on the shoes until they look more realistic (Figure 4.70, right) and
then rotate each foot so the toes are pointing out slightly. You will also need to
rotate the bottom of the jeans to match the feet.

Dressing Kila

The Belt

The belt is relatively simple. Its essentially just a cylinder that wraps diagonally around Kilas hips.
1

Still in the same scene, create a

cylinder with the following configuration: Radius 0.2, Height
0.05, Subdivisions Around Axis 14,
Subdivisions Along Height 1, and
Subdivisions On Caps 2.

As shown in Figure 4.71, delete

the central polygons; then scale the
remaining vertices out to create a
small rim.

Position the cylinder as shown in

Figure 4.72. Scale and rotate it until
it just fits around her hip, draping
diagonally.
F I G U R E 4 . 7 1 Remove the center,
and scale the remaining vertices out.

FIGURE 4.72

Position the cylinder

at Kilas hip, draping
diagonally.

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Modeling Details

Working on the vertices, adjust the belt so it lies better (Figure 4.73).

FIGURE 4.73

Adjust the belt to fit tighter around her hips.

At the point where the belt slings

downward, we can actually see
the inside. The problem here is
that once this goes into a game
engine, you may be able to see
right through the belt. Because
the polygons on the belt are being
displayed as double-sided, we are
fooled into thinking it is solid.
Lets make it single-sided and see
if we get an improvement.
5

Select the belt and press Ctrl+A

to open up the objects attributes
(Figure 4.74).

FIGURE 4.74

Editor.

Open up the belts Attribute

Dressing Kila

In the Render Stats pane, uncheck the Double Sided option; this will show
you how the belt will look when it is displayed single-sided, as will happen
in some platforms (Figure 4.75, left).

FIGURE 4.75

Creating the inside

of the lower belt

Using the Append to Polygon tool, fill in the gaps on the inside of the belt
(Figure 4.74, right)but only do this at the base. The rest of the belt should
lie quite close to the characters body, so we dont need to do the rest.

And there we have it; our model of Kila is complete! You can see the finished
model in Figure 4.76.
You can clean her up as we did before, by deleting the history. In addition, at this
point you can also freeze the transforms. This will reset all translate and rotate
values to 0 and all scale values to 1, without losing any of the position, rotation,
scale, or pivot alterations done to the mesh so far.
Save the file as Kila_Complete.mb.
Although were done working on this latest version of Kila, we have two more
stages to go through before she can be signed off. In Chapter 5, we will examine
optimization tasks, and in Chapter 6, we will look at deformation.

197

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Modeling Details

FIGURE 4.76

The Kila model

is complete.

Summary
We now have a complete model of Kila, our main character. She has all the detail
we need at the momentbut this also means we may have gone over our polygon budget. In the next chapter, we will examine areas where we can optimize,
removing any geometry that is not needed.

Index

781

Index
A
Add Attribute dialog box,
540541
advertisements, 3
aim constraint, 577580,
583584
Alienbrain software, 2627
alignment
texture, 399400
vertices, 63
alpha maps, 415426. See also
transparency
described, 415
eyes, 419424
hair, 415419
texture details, 415426
viewing in Maya, 417419
wings, 424426
anatomy, 19, 90, 776778
animation. See also character
rigging
archives, 760763
blending, 713
categories, 712714
cinematic, 713714
clothing, 13
considerations, 13
custom, 713
cycle, 712
dividing, 711
Dope Sheet, 724726
dynamic attributes,
521522
facial. See facial animation
fidget, 712
fingers, 545550
FK, 525526
four-stage, 712713
hair, 13, 589590
idle, 712
IK, 525530

manipulating, 760763
mirroring, 711
optimization, 710711
overview, 709710
playblasts, 726727
reference materials, 777
running in place, 759760
sharing, 711
toes, 566569
Trax Editor, 760763
walk cycles, 710, 712,
727759
wings, 589590
animation controls, 716717
animation curves, 719724
animation list, 714716
animation timeline, 717
animation tools, 716727
Anisotropic material, 341
ankles, Grae, 565566
ankles, Kila
deformation testing,
262265
weight painting, 262265,
672673
Append to Polygon tool, 73
Arc tool, 577
armpit area
adjusting vertices, 255
refining, 95, 120121
welding, 71
arms, Grae. See also limbs
adding details to, 294296
adding IK control, 538
adding muscles, 279280
adjusting vertices on, 271
deformation testing, 307
309, 318319
extraction of, 339340
joints, 307310
optimizing, 305

positioning, 275
stitching to torso, 273
arms, Kila. See also limbs
altering pose, 446451
animating, 752759
biceps/triceps, 104105
constraints, 532
controls, 531538
deformation testing,
240256
detaching, 446447
extending, 70
extraction of, 328330
final rig adjustments, 686
joints, 240256
left arm creation, 5355
mapping adjustments,
376378
muscles, 104106
optimizing, 203206
orientation of, 55
reattaching, 450451
refining, 104106
rotating, 448450, 532
scaling, 70
skeleton, 240243
skeleton binding, 243244
UVs, 346353
weight painting, 654664
Art Renewal Center Web site, 778
artwork. See images
asymmetry, 17, 20
attributes
dynamic, 521522, 540545
images, 38
locking, 696702
material, 341345
nonkeyable, 696702
Pitch, 547548
slide view, 3940
visibility, 699701

782

Index

audience, 3
automatic mapping, 326, 332
axis
resetting of, 44
rotational, 505515
scaling around, 44

B
back muscles
Grae, 280281
Kila, 9698
backside, Grae, 282
Bake History option, 251
belt
creating, 195198
mapping coordinates, 332
positioning, 195196
reducing levels of detail,
472473
UVs, 372376
biceps, 104105
binding
arms, Kila, 243244
blend-shapes version,
652653
character deformation and,
652653
face, Kila, 608611
face geometry, 653
joints, Grae, 311321
wings, Grae, 311
binding pose, 446454
biography, character, 611
bit depth, 436, 438441
blend shapes
binding and, 652653
facial animation, 604,
637647
Grae, 648649
Kila, 637647
blending animations, 713
Blinn material, 341
body parts. See also limbs; specific body parts
attaching, 7880, 142145,
277
collection of, 8788

detaching, 328331, 337

339, 446447
mirroring, 4748
Morgue, xx, 8788
muscle line mapping,
90107
stitching together, 6274
Bounding Box option, 45
brainstorm sheets, 1921
branding considerations, 3
breast icons, 588589
breasts, Kila. See also chest
adding, 8187
bridging, 85
cleavage, 183184
controls, 588589
joint configurations,
500502
position, 82
reducing size, 8586
refining, 86
rotating, 82
weight painting, 679680
welding to torso, 84
bump maps, 427432, 766
buttocks, Kila, 101103

C
calves, Kila, 211
cartoon characters, 1819
CD-ROM, included with book,
xixxxi
Channel Control tool, 696702
character deformation
binding, 652653
final, Grae, 651653,
691692
final, Kila, 651690
final rig adjustments,
685686
preparation, 652653
testing. See deformation
testing
weight painting. See weight
painting
character design, 123
animation issues, 1314

brainstorm sheets, 1921

branding, 3
character depth, 3
concepting, 423
considerations, 24, 1619
early sketches, 1921
game world, 3
importance of, 1
inspiration for, 34
overview, 1623
player identification, 3
style sheets, 1516
target audience, 3
technical considerations, 3
character rigging, 519601. See
also animation
arm/hand controls,
531550
breast/chest controls,
588589
curve tools, 524525
described, 520
dynamic attributes, 521
522, 540545
eye controls, 586588
facial, 627636
final adjustments, 685686
finger controls, 540550
forward kinematics,
525526
Grae, fully rigged, 590
grouping controls, 591592
hair controls, 589590
head controls, 581586
hip controls, 571574
icons. See icons
inverse kinematics, 525530
Kila, fully rigged, 590
leg/feet controls, 550570
main body controls,
571576
protecting, 696702
spine controls, 571574
tamper proofing, 696702
upper body controls, 577
use of controls, 520525
visibility controllers,
591597

Index

waist controls, 571576

wing controls, 589590
wrist controls, 538539
character sets, 703707
character teams, xvxvi
characters
anatomy, 19, 90, 776778
appeal of, 17
biography, 611
body parts collection, 8788
cartoon, 1819
changing size of, 3740
character sets for, 703707
clothing. See clothing
color, 17
combining geometry,
386387
contrast among, 17
creating. See modeling
design of. See character
design
distortion, 13
dividing, 327340
female, 1718
Grae. See Grae model
head sheets, 2223
history, 611
importance of, 1
joint limits, 12
Kila. See Kila model
limitations of, 3
male, 1718
mirroring geometry,
386387
model sheets, 2123
muscle line mapping,
90107
personality of, 3
placeholder, 4150, 7481
polygon limits, 1213
preparations for, 1516,
2631
proportions, 13, 1719
renders, 2021
repositioning, 516517
researching, 514
rest poses, 714716

rigging. See character rigging

scale, 1719
silhouettes, 17, 22
size of, 1213, 1719,
455482
style sheets for, 1516
success of, 24
summary sheets, 2021
technical limitations, 1114,
26
third-person perspective, 13
turnaround view, 22
checker map technique, 340378
checkered textures, 340378
cheeks, Kila
optimizing, 223, 225
weights, 624626
chest, Grae, 278
chest, Kila. See also breasts
adding, 8187
controls, 588589
joint configurations,
500502
muscles, 9496
child objects, 4748
chin, Kila, 112, 119, 223224
clavicles, Kila
animating, 752759
controls, 577580
rotations of, 531
claws, Grae, 289291
cleanup process, 693707
clothing, 183198
animating, 13
belt. See belt
considerations, 1315
creases/folds in, 190194,
211213
crop top T-shirt, 183187,
382
ideas for, 15
jeans. See jeans
sash, 189190, 459460
shoes. See shoes
collarbones
Grae, 278
Kila, 9394

783

color
base, 394396
bit depth, 438439
characters, 17
control icons, 598600
hair, 407
multiplying, 394
texture painting, 394396
color sheet, 26
comics, as character inspiration, 4
commands, repeating, 66
Component Editor, 658
Component mode, 4647
computer games. See games
computer graphics, xv, 779
concepting, 423
Connection Editor, 771772
constraints
aim, 577580, 583584
IK, 570
orient, 532
pole vector, 529, 570
control icons. See icons
Control Vertices (CV) Curve
tool, 522523
controls. See character rigging
creases
adding to geometry,
100101
in clothing, 190194,
211213
Creature Tools scripts, xix, 601
cropping neck, 75
cropping polygons, 7273
crotch area, Kila, 99101
cubes, tapering, 46
curves
animation, 719724
edit points, 522523
tools for, 522, 524525
cuts
mirrored instances and, 93
unable to cut, 93
UV, 351353
cylindrical mapping, 324325,
330, 346347
cylindrical shapes, 51

784

Index

deformation testing, Grae,

307321. See also character
deformation
arms, 307309, 318319
face, 320
final, 651653, 691692
legs, 312315
shoulders, 309, 316317
wings, 310312
deformation testing, Kila,
239268. See also character
deformation
arms, 240256
face, 265268
final, 651690
hips, 258261
legs, 257265
shoulders, 254256
Delete History option, 251
deleting
construction history, 616
edges, 6970
fingernails, 230231
history, 50, 61, 251, 616
polygon faces, 64, 67
polygons, 200201, 203
torso, 5960
triangles, 94
design. See character design
development teams, xvxvi
directories
Manual, xix
Maya/Scripts, xixxx
projects, 3637
structure, 27, 3637
Distance setting, 63
dithering, 438439
Dope Sheet, 724726
Duplicate button, 48
Duplicate command, 52
dynamic attributes, 521522,
540545
dynamics simulation, 13

ears, Kila
attaching to head, 170174
creating, 168170
modeling, 168170
optimizing, 221222
refining shape, 174
tucking hair behind, 162
163, 172173
UVs, 365
edges
deleting, 6970
Flip Triangle Edge Tool, 69
Edit Point (EP) Curve tool,
522523
editing, 4647, 293
elbows, Grae, 318319
elbows, Kila
adding polygons to,
251253
adjusting weights on,
244250
animating, 754756
building, 104
constraining, 533
controls, 537
deformation testing,
240253
final rig adjustments, 686
joints, 244, 754756
refining, 104105
weight painting, 661662
exporting UV positions, 379388
expressions. See facial expressions
eye area, 114116
eye icons, 587
eyeballs, 115
eyebrows, Kila
movement of, 641643
poses for, 625
rig creation, 633636
shapes, 641643
texture painting, 407
weights, 624626
eyelashes, Kila
adding, 116

creating alpha map for,

422424
refining, 116, 407, 422424
UVs, 360361
eyelids, Grae, 297, 320
eyelids, Kila
adding, 116
refining, 116
rig creation, 633636
weights, 619623
eyes, Grae
controls, 586588
creating, 297, 299
deformation testing, 320
joints, 499500, 586588
eyes, Kila
alpha map for, 419424
controls, 586588
creating, 175176
importance of, 175
joints, 499500, 586588
modeling, 175176
opening/closing, 115116
optimizing, 225226
refining, 114116
reshaping, 225226
rig creation, 633638
texture details, 406407
UVs, 362363
weights, 619623

F
face, Grae. See also head, Grae;
specific facial features
adding details, 297299
animating. See facial animation
optimizing, 304
rigging, 648649
face, Kila. See also head, Kila;
specific facial features
animating. See facial animation
attaching, 653
binding, 608611
blend shapes for, 637647
creating, 107120

Index

deformation testing,
265268
details, 107120
expressions, 265268,
627636
extracting, 637639
joints, 604626
muscle lines of, 112
optimizing, 221229
reducing levels of detail,
464465
refining, 117120
rigging, 627636
shapes, 639647
subdividing, 108109
texture details, 406407
triangulation, 435
faces, polygon. See polygon faces
facial animation, 603650
blend shapes, 637647
considerations for, 649650
Grae, 648649
importance of, 604
joint-based, 604626
Kila, 604647
levels of detail and, 647
rig controls, 627636,
648649
facial expressions, 265268,
627636
facial rig, 627636
feet, Grae
adding details, 289291
animating, 710, 759
controls, 550, 565570
rotating, 566
walk cycle, 710, 759
feet, Kila
animating, 730747
controls, 551565
creating, 145149
deformation testing,
262265
final rig adjustments, 685
joints, 551553, 559560
optimizing, 213216
placeholders for, 81
positioning, 194

resolution, 145146
reverse foot, 551
rotating, 552553, 555, 562
twisting, 563, 569
UVs, 358359
walk cycle, 710, 712,
727759
weight painting, 262265,
672673
female characters, 1718
files
names, 62
optimizing, 694695
Photoshop, 395
project, xxi
saving, 62
size of, 694695
Targa, 396
fingernails, Kila, 128129,
230231
fingers. See also hands
adjusting, 452454
animating, 545550
bending, 547, 664666
controls, 540550
creating, 125134
Grae, 547, 691
merging, 141
optimizing, 233235
pinkie, 546549
quick poses, 540545
reducing levels of detail,
458
rotating, 547
weight painting, 664666
Flat Shade All option, 4445
Flat Shade Selected Items option,
4445
Flip Triangle Edge Tool, 69
forearms, Kila, 105
forums, 779
forward kinematics (FK),
525526
freezing transforms, 44, 197

785

G
games
animating for. See animation
graphics and, xv
market for, xvii
Maya and, xvi
PlayStation, xvi, 4
Real Time CG site, 779
real-time strategy (RTS), 13
geometry
adding creases to, 100101
binding, 653
breaking up, 327334
combining, 386387
duplicating, 48
face, 653
hardening, 101
linking, 653
mirroring, 171, 386387
splitting up, 327340
viewing, 44
gimbal lock, 584585
Google, 779
Grae model
adding details, 283299
arms. See arms, Grae
biography, 10
blend shapes, 648649
breaking up, 335340
character history, 611
character set for, 707
claws, 289291
collarbones, 278
deformation. See deformation testing, Grae
early sketches, 2021
eyes. See eyes, Grae
face. See face, Grae
facial animation, 648649
feet. See feet, Grae
final model, 321
fingers, 547, 691
hands. See hands, Grae
head. See head, Grae
joints. See joints, Grae
legs. See legs, Grae
levels of detail, 483

786

Index

Grae model (continued)

limbs, 270275
mapping, 387388
modeling, 269321
mouth. See mouth, Grae
muscle line mapping,
278283
muscles. See muscles, Grae
neck, 276
optimizing, 303306
renders, 2021
setting binding pose, 446,
454
shoulders. See shoulders,
Grae
skeletal structure, 496498
technical limitations for, 14
teeth. See teeth, Grae
texture details, 414415
texture effects, 427431
texture preparation,
387388
tongue, 299
torso. See torso, Grae
walk cycle for, 710, 759
weight painting, 691692
wings. See wings
Graph Editor, 719724
graphics, xv, 779
graphics cards, 766
graphics tablets, 780
grid options, 35
group node, 4748
grouping items
controls, 591592
objects, 4748
groups
duplicating, 48
Level of Detail, 484485
muscle, 90107
gums, Grae, 298299, 305

H
hair, Kila, 152168
adding volume to, 159161,
166
alpha map for, 415419

animating, 13, 590

attaching to head, 153159
cleaning up with Outliner,
167168
color, 407
controls, 589590
creating, 152168
extraction of, 334
importance of, 152
joint assembly, 502503
layering, 153156, 160161
mirrored version of, 161
movement of, 502503
optimizing, 216220
organizing strips into layers,
163165
reducing levels of detail,
462464
refining, 166167
rotating strips to fit head,
163165
shaping, 154167
spikes, 160161
texture details, 413414
tucked behind ear, 162163,
172173
UVs, 366371
weight painting, 674675,
680
weighting, 682684
hairline, 152, 157159, 407
hand reference image, 125
handle vector, 527529
handles
IK, 527530, 535538, 590,
702
selection, 520521, 534
hands, Grae
creating, 292294
editing, 293
fingers, 547, 691
hands, Kila
adjusting, 452454
attaching to model,
142145
creating, 124125
extraction of, 330
fingers. See fingers

optimizing, 230235
placeholders for, 81
quick poses, 540545
reducing levels of detail,
458, 465
resolution, 140142
UVs, 371372
weight painting, 664666
hardening geometry, 101
head, Grae. See also face, Grae
attaching to body, 277
creating, 276277
detaching from body, 338
optimizing, 304
head, Kila. See also face, Kila
attaching ears to, 170174
attaching to body, 7880
controls, 581586
creating basic (primitive),
4849
extraction of, 332333
optimizing, 221229
placeholders for, 7480
rotating, 581
sculpting, 77
smoothing, 77
UVs, 360365
weight painting, 673676
head joint, 582583, 674
head sheets, 2223, 26, 107108
heel joint, 555
highlights, 401404
hips, Kila
animating, 731, 736737,
741745, 751
controls, 571574
deformation testing,
258261
joints, 258261
weight painting, 258261,
667671
history
character, 611
deleting, 50, 61, 251, 616
horizontal sweep, 346
hotbox, 3233

Index

icons

jaws

benefits of, 521

breast, 588589
color-coding, 598600
creating, 522525
default shapes for, 522
eye, 587
ready-made, 525
representing controls with,
521
visibility controls, 591597
IK constraints, 570
IK handles, 527530, 535538,
590, 702
IK Rotate Plane solver, 527529
IK Single Chain solver, 527529,
582
IK solvers, 527530, 582
IK Spline solver, 530
image planes, 30, 3741, 131
images
attributes, 38
height of, 30
importing, 3740
mirrored instance, 52, 80,
85
perspective view, 39
pieces of, 2930
scaling, 28
scanned, 2730
shrinking, 28
slide view attributes, 3940
storing, 2630
importing
head model sheet, 107108
images to Maya, 3740
instances, mirrored, 52, 80, 85, 93
instanceSplit.mel script, xx
interpolation, 719724
inverse kinematics (IK), 525530
Isolate Select command, 158

787

K
optimizing, 228
rotating vertices of, 640
weights, 612618

jeans
creases/folds in, 190194,
211213
deformation, 673
details, 408410
reducing levels of detail,
459460
separating from body,
188194
joint-based facial animation,
604626
Joint tool, 488490
joints
limits, 12, 488
number of, 488, 505
renaming, 310311
rotational axis, 505515
joints, Grae
binding, 311321
creating, 307310
eyes, 499500
legs, 307310
size of, 496
testing, 311321
wings, 310312, 503504
joints, Kila
arms, 240256
attaching meshes to,
243244
chest, 500502
creating, 488490
elbow, 244, 754756
eyes, 499500, 586588
facial, 604626
feet, 551553, 560
hair, 502503
head, 582583, 674
legs, 257265
options for, 488490
paint weights, 244250
spine, 571574
wrists, 241, 756

Keep Faces Together option,

36, 71
keyboard shortcuts, 43, 4748
keyframes
creating, 718719
nonkeyable attributes and,
696702
setting, 718719
Kila model. See also specific
body parts
arms. See arms, Kila
basic shape for, 5187
binding, 608611
biography, 10
breaking up geometry,
327334
buttocks, 101103
character history, 611
character set for, 703707
clothing for. See clothing
collarbones, 9394
color-coded icons, 600
deformation. See deformation testing, Kila
early sketches, 1921
ears. See ears, Kila
eyes. See eyes, Kila
facial animation. See facial
animation
facial features. See face, Kila
feet. See feet, Kila
final model, 5187
fingers. See fingers
hair. See hair, Kila
hands. See hands, Kila
head. See head, Kila
head sheets, 2223
joints. See joints, Kila
legs. See legs, Kila
levels of detail, 444445
lips. See lips
mapping, 340386
model sheets, 2123
modeling. See modeling
mouth. See mouth, Kila
muscle line mapping,
90107

788

Index

Kila model (continued)

muscles. See muscles, Kila
neck. See neck, Kila
pelvis, 99101
placeholder character for,
4150
renders, 2021
rest poses, 714716
running in place, 759760
setting binding pose,
446454
shoulders. See shoulders,
Kila
skeletal structure, 490495
spine. See spine, Kila
technical limitations for, 14
teeth. See teeth, Kila
texture details, 406415
texture effects, 432
torso. See torso, Kila
waist. See waist, Kila
walk cycle for, 710, 712,
727759
weight painting, 654684
knees, Grae
details, 285287
rotating, 314315
knees, Kila
controls, 554556
deformation testing,
261262
final rig adjustments, 685
joints, 261262
optimizing, 210211
weight painting, 261262,
671672
knuckles, 126129, 139

L
Lambert material, 341342
Lasso tool, 54
Layer Editor, 4041
Layered Shader, 341
layers
editing, 4041
hair, 153156, 160165
hiding everything in, 41
image planes, 4041

shaders, 341
visibility of, 694
Learning Movies, 3132
legs, Grae. See also limbs
adding details, 285291
deformation testing,
312315
extraction of, 335336
joints, 307310
lower, 285287
muscles, 281283
optimizing, 305306
shaping, 272
stitching to torso, 274
weighting, 312314
legs, Kila. See also limbs
animating, 730747
controls, 550570
deformation testing,
257265
extraction of, 331
final rig adjustments, 685
joints, 257265
left leg creation, 5657
muscles, 106107
optimizing, 210213
skeleton, 257258
UVs, 356359
walk cycles, 730747
weight painting, 258265,
667673
Level of Detail Group, 484485
Levels of Detail (LODs), 443517
150 polygon count,
479482
500 polygon count,
474479
1000 polygon count,
461473
3000 polygon count,
455460
facial animation and, 647
generating, 455482
Grae, 483
Kila, 444445, 455482
number of, 444
polygon counts, 455482
purpose of, 444445

setting binding pose,

446454
testing, 484485
weights, 687690
limbs. See also arms; body parts;
legs
basic creation, 4247
basic shapes, 5162
Grae, 270275
mirroring, 4748
pivot manipulator, 6062
reducing levels of detail,
466468
stitching together, 6274
linking geometry, 653
lip-synching, 628, 631
lips
creating opening between,
180181
Grae, 297
joints, 614616
optimizing, 224
refining, 111114, 119
smoothing, 224
weights, 614616
locators, 448450, 454, 522
LODs. See Levels of Detail

M
main menu bar, 32
male characters, 1718
manipulators, 4243
Manual directory, xix
mapping
automatic, 326, 332
cylindrical, 324325, 330,
346347
Grae, 387388
Kila, 340386
muscle line, Grae, 278283
muscle line, Kila, 90107
normal, 765774
planar, 324326, 329, 356
spherical, 325
textures, 324327
UVs, 324327, 340383
marking menu, 3233

Index

Marquardt Beauty Analysis Web

site, 778
material attributes, 341345
Maya
getting started in, 3141
Learning Movies, 3132
overview, xvi
Personal Learning Edition
(PLE), xxi
preferences, 3437
tutorials, 3132
Web sites, 780
Maya/Scripts directory, xixxx
measurement units, 34
memory, texture, 436, 438441
menu sets, 32
menus, 3233
meshes
attaching to joints, 243244
combining objects into, 50
low-resolution, 53
mapping muscle groups
onto, 90107
mirPo tool, 545
Mirror Geometry tool, 171
mirrored instances, 52, 80, 85, 93
mirroring
animations, 711
geometry, 171, 386387
limbs, 4748
poses, 545
weights, 681682
model sheets, 2123, 2628
modeling
body parts collection, 8788
cleanup tasks, 4950,
693707
details, 151198
final model, 5187
getting started, 3141
Grae, 269294
Kila, 2588
placeholder characters,
4150
preparation for, 2631
work environment, 2731
working with scanned
images, 2731

models
cleanup, 4950, 693707
finalizing, 693707
Grae. See Grae model
Kila. See Kila model
optimization. See optimization
scanning in, 2728
size of, 455482
Morgue, xx, 8788
morph targets. See blend shapes
morphing, 637647
mouth, Grae
adding details, 298299
building, 298299
creating cavity, 297
inner, 298299, 304
optimizing, 304305
mouth, Kila
adding teeth, 177178
blend shapes, 639641
creating, 111
facial expressions, 631633
inner elements, 177183,
364, 411413
muscles, 114
refining, 111114, 119
rig creation, 631633
shape, 180, 628, 631633,
639641
texture details, 411413
tongue, 178179
UVs, 364
weights, 612618
Move pivot point manipulator,
4243
muscle line mapping
Grae, 278283
Kila, 90107
muscles, Grae
back, 280281
legs, 281283
stomach, 280281, 284285
muscles, Kila
arms, 104106
back, 9698
buttocks, 101103
chest, 9496

789

facial area, 112

legs, 106107
mouth area, 114
neck, 9293, 120121
refining, 90107
shoulders, 9496
stomach, 9899

N
nasal cavity, 118
navel, Kila, 123124
navigation, menu, 3233
neck, Grae, 276
neck, Kila
attaching to body, 7880
controls, 580581
creating basic (primitive),
4849
cropping, 75
muscles, 9293, 120121
optimizing, 221229
placeholders for, 7480
refining, 120121
weight painting, 673676
normal mapping, 765774
normals, 74, 77, 387, 765
nose, Kila
nasal cavity, 118
nostrils, 111, 118, 226227
optimizing, 225227
refining, 110111, 117118
nostrils, 111, 118, 226227
notePad.mel script, xx

O
Object mode, 4647
objects, 4450
optimization, 199238
animation, 710711
arm, 203206
creases/folds in clothing,
211213
face, 221229
foot, 213216
fully optimized model,
236238

790

Index

optimization (continued)
Grae, 303306
hair, 216220
hand, 230235
head, 221229
legs, 210213
neck, 221229
overview, 199200
scenes, 694695
torso, 206208
waist, 208209
Optimize Scene Size tool,
694695
orient constraint, 532
Outliner, 4950, 167168, 701

P
Paint Skin Weights tool, 612614
painting
texture. See texture painting
weights. See weight painting
palm, Kila, 136138
parent objects, 4748
pelvis, Kila, 99101
Pencil Curve tool, 522
perspective view, 39
Phong /Phong E materials, 341
Photoshop, 392
Pitch attributes, 547548
pivot manipulator, 6062
pivot point manipulator, 4243
pivot points
manipulating, 4243
moving, 6062
spine, 572575
placeholder characters, 4150,
7481
planar mapping, 324326, 329,
356
Playback Controls, 716717
playblasts, 726727
PlayStation games, xvi, 4
Plug-In Manager, 766767
plug-ins, 766767, 780
Points option, 45
pole vector, 527529

pole vector constraint, 529, 570

Polycount Web site, 779
polygon count
100 polygons, 479482
500 polygons, 474479
1000 polygons, 461473
3000 polygons, 455460
character model comparison, 229230
determining, 202203
limits, 1213, 200, 230
showing, 202203
polygon faces
adding, 6567
deleting, 67
internal, 79
keeping together, 36, 71
removing, 64
splitting, 68
polygon planes, 767769
polygon sphere options, 82
polygons
creating, 65
cropping, 7273
Keep Faces Together option,
36, 71
number of. See polygon
count
reducing number of, 200
201, 433434
removing from geometry,
200201
shallow angles, 200201
splitting, 99
unnecessary, 200
Posing Guide Web site, 778
preferences, 3437
primitives, 4150
project files, xxi
projects, 3537
.psd (PhotoShop) files, 395

Q
quads, 121122

R
Range Slider, 716717
RayDisplace plug-in, 766
Real Time CG Web site, 779
real-time strategy (RTS) game,
13
reference materials, 775780
renders, 2021, 270
resBatch.mel script, xx
research, 514
resolution
feet, 145146
hands, 140142
meshes, 53
normal maps and, 767769,
771
scanned images, 2829
resources, 775780
rigs/rigging. See character rigging
Rotate pivot point manipulator,
4243
rotation
arms, 532
breasts, 82
feet, 552553, 555, 562, 566
fingers, 547
gimbal lock problems,
584585
head, 581
knees, 314315
shoulder, 531, 533
vertices, 55
rotation order, 584585
rotational axes, 505515
rotational pivot, Grae, 318
RTS (real-time strategy) game,
13
running in place, 759760

Index

S
sash
creating, 189190
reducing levels of detail,
459460
Save Selected command, 695
saving items, 62, 695
Scale pivot point manipulator,
4243
scaling
arms, 70
images, 28
object axis and, 44
UVs, 380
vertices, 54
scanned images, 2730
scenes
cleanup, 4950, 694695
optimizing, 694695
viewing in Outliner, 4950
scripts, xixxx, 601, 780
Scripts directory, xix
selection field, 702
selection handles, 520521, 534
selections
isolating, 158
shortcut keys, 48
vertices, 54
Set Driven Key dialog box, 629
Set Driven Keys, 542544, 546
shaders, 341, 396397
shadows, 404405
shallow angles, 200201
sharing items, 711
shelves, Maya, xx
shoes
creating, 141
details, 194
extraction of, 331332
optimizing, 213215
positioning, 194
reducing levels of detail,
472473
UVs, 358359
shortcut keys, 43, 4748
shoulders, Grae
adding muscles, 279280

deformation testing, 309,

316317
smoothing out, 284
weighting, 316317
shoulders, Kila
animating, 748749,
752757
deformation testing,
254256
joints, 241
muscles, 9496
optimizing, 215
rotation, 531, 533
weight painting, 254256,
654661
welding, 7172
showMaterial.mel script, xx
silhouettes, 22
skeletons, 487517
adding body geometry to,
652
additional joints, 499504
arms, 240243
base skeletal structure,
488498
binding to. See binding
Grae, 496498
joint cleanup, 505
Kila, 490495
legs, 257258
movement of, 505515
repositioning, 516517
rotational axis, 505515
sharing, 711
sketches, early, 1921
Skulls Unlimited Web site, 778
Smooth Bind options, 243
Smooth Shade All option, 4445
Smooth Shade Selected Items
option, 4445
snapshots, UV, 383386
Soften/Harden command, 74
specularity maps, 427432
spheres, 82, 325
spherical mapping, 325
spine, Kila
animating, 747750
controls, 571574

791

creating recess for, 9798

joints, 571574, 747750
pivots, 572575
Split Polygon Tool, 6768
stomach muscles
Grae, 284285
Kila, 9899
style sheets, 1516
styles, characters, 1617
subdivision surfaces, 53
summary sheets, 2021
symmetry, 17, 20
system requirements, 766

T
tangents, 719724
Targa files, 396
target audience, 3
tattoo
adding, 411
mapping adjustments,
376378
UVs and, 355
technical limitations/restrictions,
1114, 26
teeth, Grae
adding details, 298299
building, 298299
detachment of, 338339
optimizing, 305
teeth, Kila
adding, 177178
fitting inside mouth cavity, 183
positioning tongue
between, 179
texture details, 412413
UVs, 364
testing. See deformation testing
texture details
alpha maps, 415426
Grae, 414415
Kila, 406415
texture effects
Grae, 427431
Kila, 432

792

Index

texture memory, 436, 438441

texture pages
creating base for, 384386
rearranging UVs into,
380381
reducing size of, 436437
size of, 381, 394
texture painting, 391441
base colors, 394396
bit depth, 436, 438441
bump/specularity maps,
427432
darker shades, 401404
final texture details,
406415
highlights, 401404
image preparation, 393394
lighter shades, 401404
page size reduction,
436437
Photoshop, 392
polygon reduction, 433434
shadows, 404405
topology check, 433435
triangulation, 434435
texture preparation, 323389
checkered textures, 340378
dividing characters,
327340
exporting UV positions,
379387
mapping Grae, 387388
mapping methods, 324327
mapping UVs, 340378
textures
alignment, 399400
applying, 396398
checkered, 340378
viewing in Maya, 396400
thighs, Kila
optimizing, 210
weight painting, 668671
thumbs, 132135
Time Slider, 611612, 716718
toes
Grae, 289291, 566569
Kila, 556, 559563

tongue
adding control to, 616618
Grae, 299
Kila, 178179
positioning between teeth,
179
weights, 616618
torso, Grae
adding muscles, 280281
adjusting vertices, 271
creating, 270
detaching body parts from,
337339
shape of, 271272
stitching arms/legs to,
273274
torso, Kila
animating, 747752
basic shapes, 5162
creating, 5758
creating basic (primitive),
4849
deleting half of, 5960
optimizing, 206208
positioning, 5758
reducing for levels of detail,
468472
removing arms from,
328330
removing legs from, 331
UVs, 353356
weight painting, 676680
welding breasts to, 84
TransferSurfaceInfo.mll plug-in,
766767
transforms, freezing, 44, 197
transparency, 415426. See also
alpha maps
Trax Editor, 760763
triangles
converting to quads, 122
flipping edges of, 69
removing, 94
texture painting, 434435
triangulation, 434435
triceps, 104
tutorials, 3132, 780

U
undo operation, 226
units of measurement, 34
UV layouts, 381
UV sewing, 350351
UV snapshots, 383386
UV Texture Editor, 347354
UVs
cutting, 351353
described, 323
exporting positions,
379388
management of, 379382
mapping, 324327, 340383
moving, 351353
scaling, 380
snapshots, 383386

V
vertices
adding, 68
alignment, 63
editing, 4647
merging, 63
rotating, 55
scaling, 54
selecting, 54
welding, 6364, 66
working with, 46
video cards, 766
viewing modes, 241
views
alpha maps, 417419
geometry, 44
perspective, 39
slide, 3940
switching, 37
textures, 396400
turnaround, 22
visibility attribute, 699701
visibility controllers, 591597
visual styles, 1617

Index

W
waist, Kila
animating, 730747
controls, 575576
optimizing, 208209
texture details, 408
UVs, 356359
walk cycle, 730747
weight painting, 667, 670
walk cycle, 710, 712, 727759
Web Gallery of Art Web site, 778
Web sites
anatomy references,
777778
computer graphics, 779
Maya sites, 780
resources, 777780
weight painting
arms, 654664
breasts, 679680
described, 244
elbows, 244250, 661662
Grae, 312314, 691692
Grae fully weighted, 692
hair, 674675, 680
hands, 664666
head, 673676
Kila, 654684
Kila, fully weighted, 690
legs, 312314, 667673
lower torso, 258265
mirroring weights, 681682
neck, 673676
shoulders, 254256
torso, 676680
waist, 667, 670
wrists, 662664
weights
copying, 687689
joints, 611626
level of detail, 687690
mirroring, 681682
wings, Grae
alpha map for, 424426
animating, 589590, 759
basic geometry, 301
binding, 311
controls, 589590

deformation testing,
311312
deforming, 310
extraction of, 335
finger joints on, 691
joints, 310312, 503504
modeling, 300302
movement of, 503504
texture in, 424426
weight painting, 691692
Wireframe on Shaded option, 45
Wireframe option, 4445
working environment, 2731
wrists, Kila
animating, 756
controls, 538539
joints, 241, 756
optimizing, 230232
weight painting, 662664

X
X-Ray mode, 45
X-Ray option, 45

793