Create mind-blowing special effects skills with <i>Learning Autodesk Maya 2008 I The Special Effects Handbook</i>. This completely updated official Maya guide focuses on dynamics and rendering, with in-depth tutorials covering lighting, texturing, and soft body and hard body dynamics. This exceptional, full-color guide uses LAIKA's award-winning short film <i>Moongirl</i> to guide you through clear step-by-step projects using the newest version of Maya. Learn how to create materials and textures, set up lights and cameras, work with shadows and raytracing, control renders, understand rendering for special effects and compositing, explore hardware and vector rendering, create caustics and global illumination effects, and much more. Check out the companion DVD for instructor-led overviews, artist interviews and scene files to get your creative juices flowing and get you started developing amazing visual effects.