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This in-depth Introduction to Maya 2014 tutorial is designed to help you get a solid understanding of the core features found in Maya, and help you to ease your transition into this very powerful program.

In this Maya tutorial we will learn about joint-based facial rigging in Maya. Throughout these lessons we will go over using joints instead of the traditional approach of using blend shapes.
We will be using locators and offset joints to attach to NURBs curves. These curves will be the foundation of how the rig works. It's very simple, and very effective. Once the rig is created the rig is re-usable on many different types of meshes.

When building computer generated models for games, film, or broadcast, characters provide a unique set of challenges. Character models must not only look like a particular character, but they must also be built in such a way that they are able to be readily animated. This means the topology, or edge flow, can be much more important on a character model than a prop or section of environment.

Learn a production workflow to creating exaggerated facial expressions and blendshapes while maintaining appeal and clean topology using ZBrush and Maya. Contains over 2.5 hours of project-based training for artists creating facial expressions and blendshapes for use in Film and Games.

Learn the robust polygon and sub-d modeling tools available in Maya while working through a creative and practical project. Learn several modeling techniques and an adaptable workflow to modeling in Maya. Contains nearly 5 hours of project-based training.

Throughout this detailed tutorial, we'll leverage the power of ZBrush and Maya to build a strong female hero character from start to finish. We'll use Zspheres to block in the rough shape of our model and then send our geometry over to Maya using the one-click GoZ functionality. In Maya, we can recreate the topology of any of our pieces, we can create new geometry to send back to ZBrush, or modify existing geometry. We'll be going back and forth quite a bit in order to use the tools most appropriate for building the character's clothing and accessories. In addition to the modeling tools in Maya, we'll also use many of ZBrush's built in modeling functions including Shadowbox, mesh extraction, and the topology tools. Once we're done, we'll have a finished high-resolution character that can be painted or prepared for rigging, and you'll have the knowledge to repeat the process on your own character.

3D Artist Magazine offers practical inspiration for the 3D community. The software it covers includes 3DS Max, Modo, Zbrush and cinema 4D. The Magazine offers in depth interviews with leading artists in the field as well as workshop ideas and tips. Readers will find useful step by step guides and inspiration on designing and modelling animation and games. There is usually a free CD given away with each issue which offers tuition on new software to keep each reader up to date with new developments in the industry.

We will begin this tutorial with the simulation of our RealFlow assets, and discuss some important RealFlow settings to keep in mind as we prepare our assets to be used within Maya. Once we bring our RealFlow assets into Maya, we will explore topics that include setting up shaders and materials for realistic water, controlling the rendered appearance of RealFlow splash particles, rendering Hybrido foam and whitecaps in Maya, incorporating mist into our renders, and we will learn how all of these things can be accomplished without having to rely on the RealFlow RenderKit for Maya. By the time you complete this tutorial, you will have a better understanding of how to render your own Hybrido simulations using Maya.

49 min. 5 sec. | July 2, 2011 | Maya 2012 and up | Author: Kyle Green
In this tutorial we will learn the procedures for creating and utilizing image planes in Maya to use as modeling reference. We will start off by learning how to properly set up and align your image planes in something like Photoshop, From there, we will learn how to begin importing your image planes into Maya, we will learn how to resize and reposition your image planes within the Maya viewports to make sure they are properly aligned in all your views, we will learn how to import animated image planes, as well as many other tools and features that will allow you to use image planes effectively in Maya.

Author Ryan Kittleson introduces the skills digital artists need to create photorealistic 3D creatures for film, video, and game production. The course covers basic design, sculpting, texturing, posing, and lighting and demonstrates real-world workflow, starting with the basic sculpture in ZBrush and moving it into Maya for finishing, while editing textures in Photoshop.

In Character Animation Fundamentals with Maya, author George Maestri employs the basic principles of animation to bring to life simple 3D characters in Maya. Starting with an overview of the character rig, the course provides guidelines for arranging stock characters into strong poses and explains how to generate locomotion between poses in a modular fashion. The course includes step-by-step instructions on animating realistic gestures, walks, runs, facial expressions, and dialogue, and culminates with an animated scene built entirely from scratch. Exercise files accompany the course.

The Ultimate Maya 2009 Resource for Intermediate to Advanced Users If you already know the basics of Maya, now you can elevate your skills with Maya 2009 and the advanced coverage in this authoritative new reference and tutorial. From modeling, texturing, animation, and visual effects to high-level techniques for film, television, games, and more, this book provides professional-level instruction on Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited.

If you watched the first video, you now have a good grasp on Python. Sweet. Let's plow through some more involved concepts like python juggernauts! With a working knowledge of the python scripting language, and the Maya Python commands API, we can continue to learn new ways to solve more challenging problems, create complete scripts, and build user interfaces around our tools. We also introduce the Maya Python API; a lower-level interface into Maya.

Week 01: Introduction: Week one’s video is all about getting up to speed, so we’re covering the shaders, a quick brdf tour, projections and why we’re going linear with our colourspace. There’s also a lighter’s tour of Nuke, as we’ll be using it quite heavily and its important you know its main functionality.

Learn a powerful workflow to the new animation layering feature set in Maya 2009. Gain more flexibility and learn nondestructive techniques that can be used to create and edit any animation. Contains 2 hours of project-based training.

In this Maya tutorial, we will be taking a detailed look at each of the commands found in Maya's Create UVs menu. Each video in this tutorial is a self-contained lesson centering on one of the commands found in the Create UVs menu in Maya. This means that these lessons can be viewed in any order you wish, allowing you to jump straight to the content that is most relevant to you. Over the course of these lessons, we'll take a detailed look at each of the Create UVs commands and how each of them can be used to speed up our workflow.

Throughout this Maya tutorial we will discover some simple yet unorthodox skinning methods that will speed up our workflow In this Maya tutorial, Boston based artist Farley Chery will lead the viewer the unusual yet intuitive technique of multi-mesh skinning, a process created in his last production.

This tutorial discusses the production of two shots of a CGI photorealistic firefly that can be a part of a movie or a commercial.
While this series of tutorials is not a step-by-step guide, they instead offer an in-depth look at the key aspects of production that goes into creating realistic-looking shots that would otherwise be difficult to shoot without the aid of computer graphics. These tutorials will cover everything from the concept sketches and visualization to modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering and final compositing of the photorealistic shots. While the tools used in this series of tutorials are primarily Maya and modo, the techniques discussed are easily applicable to other mainstream applications.