Dariush Derakhshani is a Creative Director and CG Supervisor with Radium in Santa Monica and an award-winning CG animator and author of several Maya books, including the best-selling series Introducing Maya: 3D for Beginners and Maya: Secrets of the Pros. Dariush has been an animator and supervisor on commercials and feature films for the past 10 years at such places as Café FX, Cobalt FX, and Sight Effects. Dariush has an MFA in Film, TV and Computer Animation from USC Film School and has been teaching Maya and animation classes in Los Angeles for the past six years for schools like USC, Art Institute of Ca., and Gnomon. Dariush is the Editor in Chief of HDRI3d Magazine and has been publishing tutorials, articles, and books on Maya for the past four years in such publications as Post, CGW, 3D World, [...], and [...]. He was inducted into the Visual Effects Society this year and has won the 2003 London Advertising Award for commercial effects, the Bronze Plaque from the Columbus Film Festival, a graduate fellowship from Paramount Pictures and shares other accolades from the London International Advertising Festival and the AICP (American Independent Commercial Producers).

About the Author. Introduction. 1. Introduction to Computer Graphics and 3D. 2. Jumping into Basic Animation Head First. 3. The Autodesk® Maya® Interface. 4. Beginning Polygonal Modeling. 5. Modeling with NURBS Surfaces and Deformers. 6. Practical Experience! 7. Autodesk® Maya® Shading and Texturing. 8. Introduction to Animation. 9. More Animation! 10. Autodesk® Maya® Lighting. 11. Autodesk® Maya® and Arnold Rendering. 12. Autodesk® Maya® Dynamics and Effects. Index.