Appendix B
Autodesk Maya 2014 Certification
Autodesk® certifications are industry-recognized credentials that can help you succeed in your career—providing benefits to both you and your employer. Getting certified is a reliable validation of skills and knowledge, and it can lead to accelerated professional development, improved productivity, and enhanced credibility.
This Autodesk Official Press book can be an effective component of your exam preparation for the Autodesk Maya 2014 Certified Professional exam. Autodesk highly recommends (and we agree!) that you schedule regular time to prepare; review the most current exampreparation roadmap available at www.autodesk.com/certification; use this book; take a class at an Authorized Training Center (find ATCs near you here: www.autodesk.com/atc); and use a variety of resources to prepare for your certification, including plenty of actual hands-on experience.
To help you focus your studies on the skills you’ll need for this exam, the following table shows objectives that could appear on an exam and in what chapter you can find information on that topic—and when you go to that chapter, you’ll find certification icons like the one in the margin here. You are encouraged to build a solid foundation in by learning all of the objectivesowever, the objectives that are shown in bold in the table are most likely to appear on the exam.
These Autodesk exam objectives were accurate at press time; please refer to www.autodesk.com/certification for the most current exam roadmap and objectives.
Good luck preparing for your certification!
Table B-1 Autodesk Maya 2014 Certified Professional exam topics and objectives
| Topic | Learning Objective | Chapter |
| Animation | Analyze the animation of an object using the Curve Editor | Chapter 5 |
| Constrain an object to a path | Chapter 5 | |
| Create a path animation and evaluate an object along the path | Chapter 5 | |
| Edit animation curves using the Graph Editor | Chapter 5 | |
| Identify the constraint used for an animation | Chapter 5 | |
| List constraint types | Chapter 5 | |
| Locate the value of keys in the Time Slider | Chapter 5 | |
| Use animation passes and animation editors | Chapter 5 | |
| Cameras | Differentiate camera types | Chapter 2 |
| Edit FOV (Field of View) | Chapter 2 | |
| Explain Near and Far Clip Planes for your camera | Chapter 2 | |
| Identify controls for transforming the camera | Chapter 2 | |
| Compositing | Demonstrate how to composite multiple layers together | Chapter 12 |
| Data Management/Interoperability | Differentiate common file types and usages | Chapter 4 |
| Use the Import feature to import model data | Chapter 1 | |
| Dynamics/Simulation | Differentiate rigid body dynamics from alternate animation techniques | Chapter 14 |
| Explain how to control a soft body simulation | Chapter 14 | |
| Identify and describe the behavior of a soft body | Chapter 14 | |
| Identify nConstraint membership properties | Chapter 15 | |
| Identify rigid body properties | Chapter 14 | |
| Use soft body simulation tools | Chapter 14 | |
| Effects | Identify an atmosphere effect | Chapter 9 |
| Identify an event | Chapter 14 | |
| Identify and use physical fields | Chapters 13 & 14 | |
| Identify important attributes of OpticalFX | Chapter 9 | |
| Identify particle render types | Chapters 13 & 14 | |
| Identify particle systems | Chapter 13 | |
| Use particle system tools | Chapters 13 & 14 | |
| Lighting | Describe focus attributes on depth map | Chapter 9 |
| Differentiate light types | Chapter 9 | |
| Differentiate Depth Map shadows from Raytrace shadows | Chapter 9 | |
| Describe how to use Look Through Selected to place lights in a scene | Chapter 9 | |
| Identify the specular component of a light | Chapter 9 | |
| Materials/Shading | Describe how to fix textures that move on animated/deforming surfaces | Chapter 11 |
| Identify how to apply 2D textures | Chapter 11 | |
| List available materials (Blinn, Phong, Lambert) | Chapter 10 | |
| Indicate the specular shading attributes that are specific to Blinn | Chapter 10 | |
| Modeling | Explain the typical workflow for edge loop modeling | Chapter 3 |
| Identify the typical workflow for subdivision surface modeling | Chapter 4 | |
| Identify the type of Boolean operation performed on the objects | Chapter 4 | |
| Use object creation and modification workflows | Chapter 3 | |
| Use polygon modeling tools | Chapters 3 & 4 | |
| Use Boolean | Chapter 4 | |
| Rendering | Describe raytrace/scanline quality settings | Chapter 12 |
| List and differentiate renderers | Chapters 9,10, & 11 | |
| Describe the functionality of render preview within IPR | Chapter 10 | |
| Indicate the rendering settings that change when the NTSC preset is enabled | Chapter 2 | |
| Rigging/Setup | Describe options for using the Blend Shape deformer | Chapter 6 |
| Identify bones | Chapter 7 | |
| Identify options for editing rigid skin | Chapter 7 | |
| Identify options for editing smooth skin | Chapter 7 | |
| Use Weight Table | Chapter 7 | |
| Scene Assembly/Pipeline Integration | Describe how to import files while preserving scene data | Chapter 1 |
| Describe how to improve scene organization by using Search and Rename operations | Chapter 1 | |
| Scripting | Apply (run) scripts | Bonus Chapter 1 |
| Execute basic scripts | Bonus Chapter 1 | |
| Create and run scripts | Bonus Chapter 1 | |
| Describe how to add syntax to a script | Bonus Chapter 1 | |
| UI/Object Management | Describe and use object transformations | Chapter 1 |
| Describe how to display safe frames | Chapter 2 | |
| Describe viewport configuration and ViewCube® navigation | Chapter 2 | |
| Identify the purpose and benefits of freezing transformation data on objects | Chapter 5 & 7 |