In the deep end with Maya

So, term started a few weeks back, and after a week of throwing around possible ideas for major project things actually got going. This project is all about learning new skills; specifically Maya skills. Gotta say, bit of a shock to the system. Whilst I can see the potential Maya clearly has, there is a part of me that loathes it every time I try to do something. Why must clicking on things be so difficult?! That, really, is my number one pet peeve. Trying to select items in Maya feels a bit like bashing your head against a brick wall. You click, Maya laughs to itself, knowing you were one tiny pixel from success and promptly does the exact opposite of what you wanted.

None the less, I do seem to slowly be getting to grips with all its little quirks and slowly but surely some progress is appearing in the project. That being said, Im still behind schedule, so its not perfect yet.

For the first week we spent some time doing some reasonably simple ball animations, just to truely get to grips with animating in Maya and how the program works. This second week is when things really got going. Rigging and animating. However, since I have very little interest in bipedal and character animating, my course leader has changed my brief up a bit allowing me to spend a larger period of time on rigging and then a short bit of animating. It took a lot of tutorials, and a huge amount of frustration as I hit brick walls where my knowledge of the program ran out, but I have finally managed to complete a nice little horse rig. Now I just have to animate a walk cycle with it! Before attempting the horse I did quickly complete the “ball with legs” rig that the rest of the animators are doing to ensure I had a reasonable understanding of the rigging basics in Maya.

2 Comments

    1. Thanks, the rig itself was all finished when I posted this. It works for the most part, though the spine does break if you put the hips/shoulders in too much of an extreme position. Still, for something created in 48 hours and a first true attempt in Maya, I think its turned out pretty well. Saying that, I still haven’t started animating with it so I may take that back if I suddenly discover some nightmarish problem lol!

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