3D Animation & Data Visualization in Autodesk Maya

If you want to start your journey to learn 3D animation, take your data visualization to the next level, or just impress everyone at your next presentation, this course is for you! I believe the best way to learn 3D is not by me just listing off every single tool, but by taking a project-based approach like this course so you can learn from actually building something you can use in your day-to-day life. 

Who Am I?

My name is Lucas Ridley and I work in the film and commercial industry animating on such commercials and films as The Clash of Clans, Transformers, Suicide Squad, and the latest Spielberg movie Ready Player One (which is also a great book btw). Take a look at my profile to see some of my work.

Don't be intimidated by 3D!

I know it's an intimidating idea to learn 3D because I struggled to learn it when I began but I will walk you through exactly what buttons to press, concepts to begin to understand, and pitfalls to avoid to achieve the same results you see from the 4 examples in the preview video.

Why Maya?

Maya is the industry standard in film and commercials. Over the past several years I've worked at over 7 different studios, big and small, and they all use Maya for their 3D work. We will also cover using the Arnold renderer as it is now shipped with Autodesk Maya. In addition, we will use Adobe After Effects and Photoshop to aid us in completing some finals renders out of Maya and to manipulate the map texture for the final series.

Outline

The course is broken down into 4 sections of ascending difficulty:

• Line Graph
• Bar Graph
• Pie Chart
• Maps

Each section will cover a different method and technique inside Maya so the course will make the most sense starting from the beginning and watch each lesson in order. However, if you only need to learn how to make a pie chart, for example, you should be able to skip to that section and only watch that series of lessons and still be able to follow along to make only a pie chart.

I'm excited to share this course with you and introduce you to 3D. If you already know a little 3D or Maya you will still have plenty to learn as I cover some creative solutions to problems I haven't seen covered anywhere else. Thanks for enrolling!

• Course Introduction
• Introduction to Maya
• Line Graph 1/10 - Create data points
• Line Graph 2/10 - Create line between points
• Line Graph 3/10 - Rigging line for animation
• Line Graph 4a/10 - Animation Part 1
• Line Graph 4b/10 - Animation Part 2
• Line Graph 5/10 - Modeling background
• Line Graph 6/10 - Adding text
• Line Graph 7a/10 - Adding materials and shading
• Line Graph 7b/10 - Adding materials and shading
• Line Graph 8/10 - Camera animation and playblasting
• Line Graph 9/10 - Compositing in After Effects
• Line Graph 10/10 - Adding glow in After Effects
• Bar Graph 1/10 - Modeling bars and background
• Bar Graph 2/10 - Rigging for animation
• Bar Graph 3/10 - Bar animation
• Bar Graph 4/10 - Refining the animation
• Bar Graph 5/10 - Adding materials
• Bar Graph 6/10 - Lighting, Part 1
• Bar Graph 7/10 - Lighting, Part 2
• Bar Graph 8/10 - Adding text
• Bar Graph 9/10 - Camera animation
• Bar Graph 10a/10 - Maya rendering
• Bar Graph 10b/10 - After Effects rendering
• Pie Chart 1/10 - Creating pie chart base
• Pie Chart 2/10 - Cleaning up the rig
• Pie Chart 3/10 - Duplicating the rig
• Pie Chart 4/10 - Positioning pie chart
• Pie Chart 5/10 - Animating pie chart
• Pie Chart 6/10 - Adding Text
• Pie Chart 7/10 - Adjusting animation
• Pie Chart 8/10 - Lighting
• Pie Chart 9/10 - Creating glass material
• Pie Chart 10/10 - Compositing in After Effects
• Map 1/8 - Adding map image
• Map 2/8 - Adding displacement
• Map 3/8 - Adding contrast
• Map 4/8 - Cleaning borders
• Map 5/8 - Fixingvalues 1
• Map 6/8 - Polishing in Photoshop
• Map 7/8 - Camera, lights, render
• Map 8/8 - Compositing in After Effects