Planning and Executing a Complete Animation in Maya

Want to learn how to tell a compelling story with your animation? This course is for you. You'll learn beginner rigging and animation skills in order to plan and animate the solution to the "X Marks the Spot" problem. Software required: Maya 2016.

Storytelling is an essential part of the animation process, as it informs your artwork and excites the audience. This course, Planning and Executing a Complete Animation in Maya, will teach you animation and storytelling skills as you solve the "X Marks the Spot" problem. Throughout the course, you will take a scene with an "X" arbitrarily located somewhere in the scene and, in a short amount of time, move the main character, "Arty: the walking ball" to the X in a compelling manner. You will also deal with three phases of storytelling: beginning (build-up), middle (climax) and ending (resolution). As well, you will create a character and an environment that will allow them to tell that story as effectively as possible, and in the process, begin to learn that, as an independent animation storyteller, you have the benefit of controlling all aspects of your character and environment to tell your stories. By the end of this course, you will have improved your rigging and animation skills as well as learned how to create a captivating story for your audience. Software required: Maya 2016.

• Course Overview 1min
• Rigging Three Incarnations of Arty! 68mins
• Binding and Deforming Character Geometry 87mins
• Planning and Laying out the Animation 38mins
• Animating Arty 92mins
• Rendering the Animation 67mins