Animating on Maya

Oct. 4, 2017
Animation Lesson
Duration: 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
File: Animation_demo.ma


A PlayBlast video of my animation.

Learning about simple animation in Maya, and experimenting with deformer functions:
Bend, Flare Sine. Squash, and Twist.

I have written some notes (Hopefully these will be helpful):

Four cylinder and one cube with subdivisions

Won’t work without subdivisions

New menu called deformed — Nonlinear

See the manipulators for the object, press T

Can see the manipulator handles for Bend

Grab the hands to bend the object.

Useful for animating and modeling, that’s why it can be seen in the subset for animating and modeling

Can see at attribute edition and outliner to find them, if lost

Channel box, can find them under shapes (i.e. Bend 1)

Next cylinder — use Flare

T selected to see manipulators (three sets)

Can control multiple axises, nice to form vases

Squash and squish action

Listed as Flare 1 in Inputs

Next is Sine, creates a sine wave

Useful  in animating fish tails, or anything squiggle related

Swimming or slithering action

Next is Squash, classic squash and stretch

Cartoon effect

Last - Twist

Not visible to use twist on a cylinder, refer to cube

Twist cube with the deformer

Basic animation in Maya

Export

1. Playblast
2. Rendering

Keyframing

 Never keyframe geometry, no mesh

Key attributes and transform

Transform node and Inputs are safe

Don’t keyframe on poly cube

Go to the attribute area, where the deformers are added and right click.

(Right click on attribute, key all key able)

Red shown in channel box, keyed on those attributes

Frame 30, deform cube, pink color in channel box. right-click the deformer attribute, Key all key able and repeat process

Playback in time slider to see process

When it's done, go to time slider and right click on to playlist to save as a video.