UTS Dislocation

The C3dC Maya 2016 Prefs are the hotkeys/scripts and default prefs that are automatically setup and ready to go. Increase speed and workflow with this handy pack of mods for Maya compatible with all operating systems. Install is easy, unzip the folder and replace your current preferences. A full hotkey list is found here too.

Learn how to block characters in one hour on this overview page which breaks down how to simplify complex characters into simple shapes. Learn how and why it’s good to do this in Maya and repeat the exercise as many as 50 times to build an eye for three dimensional form. A 15 min timelapse shows the process on a character with detailed notes. (Part 1 of 2)

This page gives an overview about previs, a rather large area that’s most closely tied to the job of a director. Mostly some examples here, Happy Feet previs with commentary, the previs and animatic from Cane-Toad and some commercials and students examples too.

Learn about cameras in Maya. There’s a lot of little things on this page you might not know about that can be very handy while animating shots. Gimbal Order, setting resolution, clippig planes, pan and scan, focal length and advanced camera navigation are all explained here.

Various notes describing the common animation settings, both in the graph editor and preferences. Etc.

Blendshapes are key to deformation in Maya and allow us as artists full control over the shapes we’d like to hit in our posing and facial animation. This class covers the fundamentals of how blendshapes work in Maya, the key elements we need to know so we can get started with having full control over our deformation and character meshes.

brave rabbit’s SHAPES plugin enables us to create and edit blendshapes fast with an amazing amount of control. But before we jump in the deep end it’s worth going over a few key aspects of this plugin, learning how to use some of the manual features so if things go wrong we can repair and fix our files. Best to watch this page first before beginning.

In this class we’ll explore blendshape facial setup with brave rabbit’s SHAPES 2.0 plugin that is a must have tool for blendshape facial setup. SHAPES makes it easy to do a lot of complicated tasks such as driven key correctives, sculpting shapes, tweaking and mirroring, editing renaming and managing all of our shapes. SHAPES 2.0 also goes much deeper but we’ll save those features for another class. SHAPES comes with a free personal learning edition so it’s easy to get started.

Animation Posing, posing characters broken down.

Breaking down acting for animators

Timing and Contrast In Animation and It’s Importance