This is not a book about Maya software with a few animation pointers thrown in here and there. This is a guide to Maya software written by professional animators. This book provides you with complete, step-by-step walkthroughs of essential animation techniques that increase your speed and efficiency while using Maya 2013 for character animation. From menus to modeling, lip synching to lighting, How to Cheat in Maya 2013 covers all of the methods available in the latest version of Maya. Featuring gold-mine coverage and interviews with expert animators, and covering new topics such as Heat Map skin binding and Smooth Bind options as well as the nHair toolset, this book teaches you new techniques for working with characters in multi-animation tests and short films. Also accompanied by the companion site www.howtocheatinmava.com, this is the guide to get you up to speed.

Featuring: Complete, step-by-step walkthroughs of essential techniques every animator needs to know Interviews with leading experts and experienced animation leads Companion website including all exercise/example scene files and extras such as video tutorials, animation files. New to this Editon: Three ALL-NEW chapters covering Rigging Cheats, Workflow, and Referencing Pipeline New cheats added for Graph Editor, Techniques, Cycles, and more! Four all-new interviews with Maya experts Five character rigs NEW to the How to Cheat in Maya series EXCLUSIVE access to the PHENOMENAL "Cenk" facial animation rig!! Only How to Cheat readers get to play with this awesome character! New interlude article covering everything from Schools to Demo Reels. Book jacket.