Adding Dynamics to a Mermaid Animation with Bifrost in Maya
Throughout these Maya tutorials, we'll look into the process of taking a short animation and enhancing it dramatically with dynamic water and hair. Software required: Maya 2015.
What you'll learn
Throughout these Maya tutorials, we'll look into the process of taking a short animation and enhancing it dramatically with dynamic water and hair. As our mermaid emerges from the ocean we'll enlist the help of one of Maya's newest tools, Bifrost, to quickly and easily simulate the water around her to generate a realistic splash. In addition to this we'll also investigate the use of nHair to give her long flowing locks which also animate as she moves. By the end of this Maya training, you'll understand more key tricks and shortcuts essential to produce a still image or an animated sequence. Software required: Maya 2015.
Table of contents
- Introducing Bifrost 6m
- Setting up Our Scene in Bifrost 8m
- Introducing the Mermaid 8m
- Containing the Ocean 9m
- Working on the Simulation Details 6m
- Adjusting Bifrost Display Settings 8m
- Working with Simulations Movement Options 10m
- Making Waves 8m
- Influencing the Water 9m
- Refining Your Simulation 8m
- Bifrost Meshing 12m
- Bifrost Disk Cache 7m
- Baking Out the Bifrost Mesh 6m
- Setting up the Scene to Render 7m
- Adjusting the Bifrost Shader 8m
- Adding the Mermaid's Hair 8m
- Adjusting the Hair's Basic Settings 8m
- Refining the Hair's Movement 9m
- Investigating Environmental Influences 6m
- Adjusting the Style and Appearance of Hair 10m
- Rendering Hair 9m
- Adjusting Hair Render 9m
- Final Composition 4m
About the author
Antony Ward is a Freelance Digital Artist, Animator and Writer based in the UK. Since the early 1990`s he has worked in, and along side the game development industry for some of today's biggest companies at a senior level. Since going Freelance he has branched out into new areas and has also found the time to write three technical manuals, Game Character Development in Maya (2004), Game Character Development (2008) and 3D Modeling in Silo (2010) as well as many published tutorials. These have pr... more