Session 1. Overview of the course, general underlying structure of Maya (an example of a modern day paradigm for large software systems), Hypergraph's node based hierarchy, the many editors of Maya, initialization phase of Maya execution, hardware vs software rendering, scripting vs programming, final project discussion.

Session 2. Scripting with MEL, initialization script, runtime MEL, button on the shelf, general uses of MEL, examples of MEL, examine general structure of a MEL statement, the MEL command dictionary.

Session 3. Data types, operator precedence, environment variables, user defined vs Maya defined variables, declaring variables, print to the script editor.

Session 4. Expressions, eyes example, particles, using predefined functions.

Session 5. Manipulating nodes.

Session 6. Creating custom user interfaces with MEL.

Session 7. MEL commands, functions and procedures, constructs - for,if,switch.

Session 8. More on user interfaces.

Session 9. MEL for particle dynamics.

Session 10. MEL with soft body dynamics.

Session 11. Work session, individual help.

Session 12. Final showing of projects completed.