Ready to learn from a seasoned visual effects veteran? Then sit down and pay attention! In Maya 5 Killer Tips, effects wizard Eric Hanson lets the genie out of the bottle, revealing all of the Maya tricks, techniques, and shortcuts he's employed to create visual marvels for films like The Day After Tomorrow, Cast Away, Fifth Element, and more. By focusing on concise tips, informative nuggets, and seasoned productivity secrets that are rarely found in other volumes, this book takes you straight to the heart of the matter: the productivity enhancers that you usually only acquire after working with a program in an intensive professional environment. In this case, Eric reveals many of these road-tested Maya secrets: efficient modeling with NURBS and polygons; creating rich rendering results with shader networks; conveying professional camera techniques; using particle systems, dynamics; and more. Along the way he explores Maya 5's new features as well, including improved rendering and character setup options.