Maya: Paint Effects and Artisan

Taught by Matt Leonard

Course Number:
MYA228
Software Version:
2017 
Original Run Date:
March 2018 
Duration:
3 hours 31 minutes 
3D
Since its, conception Artisan has been a part of Maya but it wasn’t until version 2.5, released in 2000, that Paint Effect founds its way into the package. Our course focuses on many of the key aspects of these two intertwined toolsets. We look at 2D artistic painting, 3D object paint, live 3D texture paining, animation of the paint, 3D sculpting, selections and attribute manipulation. This course is perfect for someone who has never used Paint Effects and Artisan before, but is also a great refresher for the more experienced artist who may have missed or forgotten how many great applications this toolset can be used for.

The course is taught by Matt Leonard who works for Industrial Light & Magic as a Technical Trainer specialist in Creature Development. He has been in the 3D and Visual Effects industry since 1990 and has contributed to such movies as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Godzilla, Thor: Ragnarok and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Matt’s been using Maya for 20 years since it’s initial release in February 1998. He is also well versed in Katana, RenderMan, Arnold and Nuke.

Note: we do not cover the new Mudbox functionality added to Maya.
 
Maya: Paint Effects and Artisan
Watch our overview of the course

Class Listing

Class 1: History of Paint Effects and Artisan

When they where introduced into Maya and also where they’ve been used in production. From there we go over a general introduction of Artisan, look at how we can use the tool as a quick selection system, and along with a basic sculpting methodology.

Class 2: Paint Effects

3D capabilities and what brushes are available to us. The basics of painting onto a surface, rendering and lighting Paint Effects strokes, and how to manipulate the stroke after it’s been created to generate different effects.

Class 3: Paint effect viewer

We briefly look at how 2D stokes work in the Viewer before moving onto 3D where we cover the specific Growth attributes, including Branches, Twigs, Leaves, Flowers, and Buds.

Class 4: Canvas controls

We examine where the 2D brushes files are stored on disk and how they can be edited to create new effects. We then work our way through most of the 2D brushes, looking at what they do and any specific areas of interest. Finally, we look at painting with a 2D brush onto a 3D object.

Class 5: 3D Paint Effects strokes

Strokes can be used to generate things such as hair. We look at attaching the hair to an animated object and how the hair can be made sudo-dynamic so that it’s effected by the movement of the parent object. We also look at how 3D brushes can be animated to grow along its own stroke in different ways and how you can attach a brush to an existing 2D NURBS curve.

Class 6: 3D Paint Effect brushes

We turn our attention to the dynamics options, including Bend and Turbulence. We then look at how we can control 3D bushes via Softbody Dynamics NURBS Curves using true Maya forces such as Vortex and Radial. Finally, we look at how we can animate growth of a 3D brush via the controls for‘Leaves, Flowers, and Buds.

Class 7: Artisan

In our final class, we look at how we can use Artisan for the control of specific Weight attributes. We first show its use with Clusters and then move onto Skin Weights.