Hot Maya How-Tos
How To: Snap things in Maya 8.5
If you are building 3D characters using Autodesk Maya 8.5, but are still having trouble, maybe you forgot about snapping? Well, check out this beginning tutorial video on snapping in Maya, to make your animation much, much easier. 3D modeling is just the beginning folks.
How To: Use selection masks in Maya 8.5
Something that's particularly useful in Autodesk Maya 8.5 is masking. Check out this video tutorial on masking for your animation. There's going to be all kinds of nasty little things in your character development, like bones, curves, geometry, and a lot more. This video will help you in those 3D animation situations in Maya with masking techniques, like lattice points.
How To: Use parenting techniques in Maya 8.5
If you want to learn how to use Autodesk Maya 8.5, then starting off in the video could be a good thing for your animation projects. In this tutorial, you'll learn some basic Maya parenting techniques to help you along your way to magnificent character development. So, if your a Maya novice, you need this how to video on parenting things.
How To: Create bones in Maya 8.5
If you need to create an animated character, Maya is the software program for you. If you don't know how to make that character you've dreamed up, then maybe you should check out this Maya video tutorial on an important step -- creating a skeleton structure. Creating bones could be a daunting task in Autodesk Maya 8.5, but with the help of this four-part video, you'll see how to create those realistic bones for your animation with ease. You'll also see some common unintentional wrong rotation...
How To: Animate a bouncing ball in Maya
The bouncing ball animation is a classic beginning point for animating in every 3D software package. This tutorial shows you how to do it in Maya. Part two will concentrate on keyframes. Part three will turn the bouncing ball into a character set. Part four will cover using the Trax editor when animating.
How To: Add more than one center of mass to a Maya object
Learn how to add more than one center of mass to an object when animating it in Maya.
How To: Use dynamics in Maya
This tutorial offers an introduction to how dynamics work in Maya and how to create a passive ground plane and active objects that react to it.
How To: Work with fields in Maya's dynamics
This two part tutorial covers three different types of forces (fields) available for use withing Maya's dynamics section.
How To: Use hinge constraint dynamics in Maya
This two part tutorial covers creating and using hinge constraints in the dynamics part of Maya. Learn how to set active and passive rigid bodies and create a playground see saw animation.
How To: Use fabric in Maya
This lesson provides a quick introduction to using cloth in Maya.
How To: Make a dynamic chain in Maya
Learn how to make a dynamic chain in Maya so that it will react properly when it hits the ground.
How To: Use pin constraints in Maya
This 2 part Maya tutorial covers how to use pin constraints and how they differ from dynamic constraints.
How To: Use dynamics springs in Maya
This tutorial shows you another method for using dynamic point constraints in Maya to create springs and things.
How To: Use the rules of dynamics in Maya
This tutorial explains some of the rules for using dynamics in Maya.
How To: Animate objects with constraints in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to switch between animation mode and dynamics mode in Maya so you can animate objects with constraints on them.
How To: Create tileable textures in Maya
Learn how to use the UV texture editor in Maya to create tileable textures.
How To: Use hypershade in Maya to create textures
In this tutorial you will learn how to download textures, bring them in to Maya and use them in the Hypershader.
How To: Generate normal maps in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to generate normal maps to add depth to your textures in Maya.
How To: Use specular maps to texture a lemon in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to use specular maps to create textures on a lemon in Maya. Lesson files here:
How To: Use basic lighting in Maya
Learn the basics of lighting and how to manipulate lights within your scene in Maya.
How To: Work with multiple UV's in Maya UV editor for textures
Material texture and lighting within the 3D modeling Community is a skill in itself. Hopefully this will help those that are trying to go down the road of a texture artist. part one covers editing multiple uv's at the same time on a model in Maya using the Maya UV editor. part two covers painting on a UV set exported from Maya in Photoshop. Part three covers using Masks from your UV set in Zbrush. Lastly you will see how to put the textured object in the Unreal Engine.
How To: Animate a character in Maya
This is the basic bone animation using a character set and the hypergraph within Maya. Geared for kids to learn 3D modeling and animating this video is great for beginners.
How To: Rig a character in Maya for beginners
Here we build a skeleton for the character and bind the skeleton to the geometry in Maya. This is also known as rigging a character.
How To: Build a small biped in Maya for beginners
This video is a crash course introduction to Maya geared for kids. Learn how to create a biped that is animatable.
How To: Set up a good workflow for kids to use Maya
This series is easy enough for kids and adults but should be alot of fun for both that want to learn how to build and animate 3D characters. Jason Welsh teaches how to get all your software for free and setup for the students workflow for his tutorials..
How To: Texture an object in Maya and export to Unreal Engine
This tutorial explains how to use the Maya uv editor to set up an object to be imported into the Unreal Engine so you can shoot at the object.
How To: Create a stain glass window in Maya
This tutorial series shows you how to work with lighting in Maya by creating a stain glass window with a candle in front of it. This is a great in-depth look at lighting. Part one sets up a 3 point lighting system within maya. so this is a general overview of many light properties. Part 2 makes the stain glass alpha for the lofting lesson using Zbrush. Part 3 covers how to cast light through a colored alpha within maya and make the illusion of stain glass. Part 4 is where you add the candle t...
How To: Set up a Doom 3 to Maya workflow
This video is to get you started with the initial setup of the Doom 3 to Maya workflow. Topics covered (in order) are set up, export your first character ingame, texturing, animations on character cycles, load game models into Maya. Part 4 is a WMP video.
How To: Render glass in Maya's Mental Ray renderer
Have some glass that needs rendering in Maya? With Mental Ray, it's easily done. Mental Ray (trademarked mental ray) is a rendering application by mental images that's integrated into Maya, and in this video you'll learn about two of the major glasses within it, plus how to render them. It's a very detailed explanation for rendering glass in Mental Ray, so be prepared for a lot of knowledge!
How To: Model a human body in Maya
This tutorial series shows you how to model anatomy of the human body in Maya and gives specific tips on how to eventually be able to do it from memory. Part one starts with the head, part two the torso, part 3 the legs, part four the foot, part 5 the arm, part 6 attaching the parts and part 7 modeling hands.
How To: Subscatter particles across a surface in Maya & Zbrush
This tutorial shows you how to subscatter particles (SSS) across the surface of a mesh using Zbrush and Maya then rendering with Mental Ray. In part one uvs are added to the Zbrush head to support the textures on the sss node. Part two shows you the basic node setup in Maya. Part 3 covers painting and applying diffuse maps in Zbrush to Maya, part 4 covers painting and applying the the front sss color map, part 5 covers the mid sss color map, part 6 applies the bump map to the sss node and par...
How To: Solve out quads in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to solve out quads in Maya. This includes learning to loft curves. Crank up the volume, this one is recorded softly.
How To: Use the keyboard and mouse with Maya
Before you can fly you must learn to walk. The first day is keyboard and mouse movements within Maya. Watch the following lesson.
How To: Navigate in the viewports in Maya
Since navigation is the key element in modeling. This exercise will focus on assembling using the viewports. Of course theres ... always a fun way to learn. So I brought back an old childhood toy to add some flare to the lesson.
How To: Split polygonal geometry in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to edit components in Maya by splitting the geometry. It is specific to polygonal modeling.
How To: Box model in Maya
This tutorial shows you how to edit primitives, also known as box modeling, to create objects in Maya. This video is geared towards younger students new to Maya.
How To: Edit UV's in Maya
Learn how to edit UVs on an object and how they are made in Maya. These videos are made for a very young audience and are very easy to follow.
How To: Assign textures to UV's in Maya
This video shows you how to assign textures to uv's on models in Maya. This is a traditional method but fundamental to understand. You'll be painting the textures on UVs using Photoshop.
How To: Create correct flowing polygonal geometry in Maya
This tutorial covers how to make sure your polygon models have good flowing geometry in Maya. You'll also learn how to merge polygonal surfaces and use the crate polygon tool.
How To: Create good flowing geometry in Maya
This two part Maya tutorial explains many elements of modeling and how to make sure you create geometry that is well constructed with good flow. It covers cutting holes in objects / Flowing one weird form into the next and still maintaining uniformed polys across the 3d surface.