Maya & Unreal: Complete Guide to Fast 3D Animation & Rigging

Hi there!

Welcome, and thanks for choosing Class Creative’s Maya & Unreal Engine from Beginners to Pros: Complete Guide to Fast 3D Animation & Rigging!!

In this foundation course we will be learning the fundamentals of Character Rigging for games (specifically for the Unreal engine, but this method will also work for other game engines such as Unity).

Learn everything necessary for Character Animation and Rigging utilizing Autodesk Maya taught by a AAA game professional with university level accredited instruction!

Autodesk Maya is the industry standard 3D animation software, understanding the concepts in this course will help you land a job in the game, film, tv, or music industry.  In this course you will learn how to rig and animate your custom created character from scratch.

We will cover the following core skill sets:

• Getting started with Maya and understanding the interface

• Joint placement and theory

• Creating proper skinning & weights

• Character setup and rig pose theory

• Unreal Engine's A.R.T. rigging tools for Autodesk Maya

• Understanding hotkeys to animate and rig quickly

• Character Rigging to prepare for animation

• Animating with keyframes

• Animating a production ready walk cycle quickly and efficiently

• Exporting the character rig, and animation to the Unreal Engine

NOTE - Course does NOT include custom character mesh.  ART tools will include mannequin mesh which will allow all animation and lessons to be animated without a mesh or completing a custom rig.  Course is strictly showing the process of rigging YOUR custom mesh character of choice, and animating a high fidelity walk cycle for ANY character regardless of software or rig limitations.  ART tools requires Python 2 Support.  Maya 2022 for Mac OS (Pc/Linux Maya 2022 both currently support Python 2) currently only supports Python 3; the Art tools will require Python 2 which is currently only supported in Maya 2020 on Mac OS.

UPDATE  - We now provide and support current versions of Maya with a provided Advanced Skeleton Unreal Mannequin rig for the animation section of the course if you choose not to use the ART tools Mannequin rig for Maya 2022.

We’ll be utilizing the latest software packages that top tier gaming studios of today use to create all of your favorite titles!

• Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine’s Maya Animation Rigging Toolset (A.R.T. for short), and the Unreal game engine.

Why Learn From Class Creatives?

This course features an accredited university level animation instructor who has over 15 years of experience animating both keyframe, and motion capture based walk cycles for studios such as Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerilla Games, Sucker Punch, Google, Disney and more. Whether it be a complex hyper realistic character walk or a cartoony stylized “Disney” walk it ALL starts with the fundamentals which we cover in these lectures. The rigging instructor also has experience with studios such as Disney and Google creating various kinds of rigs for multiple styles and projects.

Who This Course is For:

Whether you are just a beginner interested in Character Rigging and Animation, or a Master professional looking to brush up on your current skill set, this course has material you surely won’t want to miss!

As with all Class Creative’s courses, we’ve laid out a structure that covers the full spectrum of industry standard character workflows from start to finish.

Please remember, if this is your first time creating rigging or animating a 3D character, we highly recommend that you follow the outline carefully, according to how our instructor’s have structured the course. We wouldn’t want you to miss out on any details!

However, if you are an advanced user and are looking for something specific to add to your repertoire feel free to dive in and skip to any sections you’d like to focus on.