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In this unique full-color book, a cadre of professionals led by Maya expert and best-selling author, John Kundert-Gibbs, team up to share what they've learned using Maya in the CG trenches. Contributing authors include veterans of such high-profiles projects as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Star Wars: Episode I, The Perfect Storm, as well as animations featured at SIGGRAPH. Whether you're new to the field or already have solid 3D experience, Maya: Secrets of the Pros offers insights and step-by-step instructions designed to help you build and sharpen a range of critical skills, including: * Preparation techniques for modeling and animation * Improving motion capture and lip synching * Creating crowd scenes from a small number of base models * Controlling dynamics in plot-driven sequences * Developing massively complex particle systems for film effects, such as those in The Perfect Storm * Modeling subdivision surfaces * Creating a GUI animation set-up for animators * Using effective natural lighting * Writing software for a multi-platform renderfarm