In This Chapter

You've come to the end of the book, but there's so much more to Maya for you to explore. Because our publisher refused to allow us to issue an encyclopedic- sized set of books as Maya 4.5 Fundamentals , we've had to confine our subjects to those most necessary and useful to learning and using Maya. Rather than stop there, however, this last chapter points out some directions for your future growth, not only with Maya and its mechanics, but also as an animator and artist.

The subjects we'll cover include:

• Troubleshooting slow renders Sometimes you can unintentionally increase your render times. We'll give you a few tips on why this can happen.

• Batch rendering If you want to render several different animations on one or many machines, you'll need to learn how to set it up.

• Workflow enhancements Learn to build your own marking menus , hotkeys, Shelf buttons , and scene helpers.

• Compositing Professionals working on a deadline learn to divide their work into layers and use compositing to combine the layers later. We'll show you how this technique works.

• Adding to Maya A broad variety of free tools can be installed in Maya to add seamlessly to its functionality.

• Future directions We've compiled some general thoughts and tips from professional animators to guide you if you want to make a career of computer animation.

Key Terms

batch file A text file that runs in the command prompt and includes a list of commands for the operating system.

Shelf A convenient place in the Maya interface to set up your favorite tools or build your own.

compositing Creating an image from several source images, layered on one another.

layer or pass or plate One of the sources in a composite. Often described with a name , such as background plate, beauty pass, specular layer, and so forth.