I'm back from a quick trip to the bay area where I met with some game developers.  While I was there I spent a half day at Crystal Dynamics talking with some of their artists and tech artists about Maya.  Some of the guys there (Darrell, Morris, Joe, etc...) I've now known for about 8-9 some odd years from various past developers.  Reminiscing with them I was starting to feel old...  but hey if I'm old, then so are they!  In general it's pretty interesting to see how the industry and the people in it have matured over the last 10 years.

Speaking of reminiscing, it was good to be back in my old stomping grounds.  I lived in SF from 1999 to 2002, which was an interesting time to be there to say the least.  I got to see the rise... and the fall of the dot-com boom first hand.  I had some friends that were actually worth millions on paper only to see it all dissipate almost overnight!  Strange times indeed.

So anyway... let's get back to it.  Below is a quick demo showing how layers from PSD files can be used in Maya.  Most people know that you can load PSD files directly in Maya.  But did you know that if you set up layer groups in the PSD you can actually open them indepedantly?  In the following movie I'll go over this along with a few other tips and tricks for working with reference images, measurements, etc...