3D Animation Course for Beginners in Maya

Explore Maya's airplane rig, using bones and nurbs circle controls to animate the plane and propellers with constraints and keyframes, while reviewing the outliner and display layers.

Apply Maya rigging concepts by adding a torus obstacle using nurbs and polygon primitives, adjust its radius, and organize the scene with display layers to prevent edits.

Select the root control, set a keyframe for the airplane’s starting pose with auto key, then refine timing, path, in-between poses, and rotations using the graph editor and motion trail.

Open the graph editor to animate the propeller spin in Maya with a linear curve and cycle offset, then mute the root animation and lock non-rotation channels to repeat spin.

Master posing with a composite rig by shaping poses through line of action and clear silhouettes to convey emotion, readability, and story with thoughtful camera angles and negative space.

Master the rig overview for a marionette character, using digital bones and nurbs controls to pose with feet, knees, and hands.

Block and pose a Maya character by creating a neutral t pose as a base, then build a scared pose using contrapposto, weight, and asymmetry for believability.

Pose the character in Maya with an angry stance, spreading weight, rotating hips, bending arms, and maintaining contrapposto while emphasizing line of action, camera angles, and silhouettes.

Explore how timing and spacing convey physics, mass, and mood in 3d animation by adjusting frame distance and rhythm, using ease in and ease out for believable pacing.

Explore timing and spacing with ease in and ease out in Maya animations, contrasting linear motion with slow in, slow out, and a combined ease in/out using the graph editor.

Set up a basic Maya rig, enable auto key, and animate a believable ball bounce by refining timing with the graph editor, ghosting, and a 24-frame looping cycle.

Bring a soccer ball to life in Maya by animating a bounce across the screen on two axes, using keyframes, the graph editor, and a linear spline, until it stops.

Practice squash and stretch and anticipation to convey weight and flexibility in Maya, adjusting for material properties and animation style while preserving volume for realistic or cartoony effects.

Learn to enhance a bouncing ball with squash and stretch using a Maya rig, adjusting global offset, squash rotation, and the squash controls for realistic motion.

Explore anticipation and squash and stretch in maya 3d animation, analyzing a cube jump with anticipation, action, and settle to create believable motion.

Learn how to create an anticipation jump by keyframing a cube with holds, squash and stretch, and clean timing using the graph editor for a dynamic Maya animation.

Learn overlapping action and follow through, including drag and separation of parts, plus arc-based movement to create organic, believable animation in Maya.

Animate a waving blade of grass in Maya by keyframing a C-shaped arc over 24 frames, hiding bones, and refining motion with easing and grease pencil or motion trails.

Animate an arm swing in Maya for beginners, learn joint breaking and overlapping action using the shoulder, elbow, and hand poses, with keyframe timing and motion trails.

Explore overlapping action across a full character turning in Maya, focusing on the spine, weight shift, and contrapposto relationships between the hips, chest, and head.

Master overlapping action in Maya by choreographing a turn from head to chest to hips, adding in-between poses, arc motion, weight shifts, and graph editor refinements.

This overview reinforces fundamental animation principles through a pose-to-pose and straight-ahead workflow, guiding you to plan key poses, craft story poses, and execute a mood-change transition for a full character.

Analyze strong poses by focusing on clear silhouettes, lines of action, and contrasting poses, using contrapposto, anticipation, squash and stretch, and five key poses to drive Maya animations.

Apply the pose to pose principle to craft five main poses from sad to happy, while verifying scene setup and Maya workflow with stepped mode and auto key.

Learn to craft mood change in Maya by building key and breakdown poses, adding holds, overshoots, and anticipation, retiming with graph editor and stepped tangents for a smooth moving hold.

Master mood change in Maya by crafting in-between poses with the graph editor, auto tangents and spline curves, adding overlap and arc-driven, organic motion led by the hips.

Perform final cleanup in Maya by refining body curves, hips, chest, and head to remove straight lines, fix knee popping, and preserve anticipation and overshoot for a smooth sad-to-happy transition.

Learn to animate a vanilla walk cycle in Maya by building the five main poses—contact, lowest, passing, highest—and refining with pose-to-pose, energy, and weight shifts.

Learn pose-to-pose 3D animation in Maya by blocking the three contact poses of a walk cycle, using IK for feet and FK for arms, and duplicating poses across frames.

Use breakdown poses to build a walk cycle in Maya by defining contact, lowest, passing, and highest poses, then copy keyframes and refine weight and foot roll for fluid motion.

Enhance a basic walk by adding rotations and overlap across the body, hips, chest, and head; simplify curves, set contact and passing poses, and use infinity cycles for continuous motion.

Focus on arm movement by adjusting the elbow and wrist with shoulder-driven overlap, and use pre infinity and post infinity curves for a polished motion.

Unhide the right leg, refine foot contact with toe overlap, and slam the foot; in Maya, use a linear translation curve, adjust foot roll, and loop over 24 frames.

Explore creating a personalized walk cycle in Maya by carrying a prop, learn to attach it with constraints, and compare IK and FK hand controls within a full rig overview.

Learn how to attach a prop to a character’s hand using a hand-driven constraint system in Maya, centering the pivot, and using nurbs circle controls for realistic, independent sword animation.

Learn how to build a prop-driven hand constraint in Maya by linking a cane to the hand with parent constraints and offset controls, switching IK/FK.

Learn to build a dual-hand constraint system in Maya for a prop, using ik arms and nurbs circle controls, with offset options and blend to detach and reattach the axe.

Set up a constraint system for a walk cycle with a heavy object like an axe, using reference poses and carefully timed key poses and overlaps.

Adjust timing to convey weight in a walk cycle by lengthening frames and shifting keys, then polish feet, hands, and curves for a heavier, believable Maya walk with a prop.