T0478 - Digital Tutors - Animating Next-Gen Characters in Maya

Learn a production workflow to game animation and time-saving methods for creating game-ready characters rigs, non-linear animation, and adding appeal. Contains over 6 hours of project-based training for artists learning character animation for next-generation games.Popular highlights include:

• Rigging Techniques for Games


• Scene Organization


• Custom Shelves


• Creating Control Objects with MEL


• Constraints


• Advanced Spline IK Twist control


• Alias Attributes


• Binding Techniques


• Rotation Order


• Follow-through


• Exaggeration


• Arcs


• Timing and Spacing


• Weight


• Cycling Animation


• Animated Transitions


• Character Sets


• Trax Editor

* You may use Maya version 8.0 and up to follow along with the training. X-Ray Joints is the only feature that we discuss that is available in Maya version 2008 and up only. Lesson Outline:

1.	Preparing the scene for rigging	9:09
2.	Building a custom shelf	3:17
3.	Creating MEL buttons to generate control objects	10:46
4.	Constructing the character's legs	11:04
5.	Setting up control objects for the legs	9:58
6.	Finishing the leg controls	6:45
7.	Building the spine	5:45
8.	Rigging the spine using the Spline IK tool	4:51
9.	Establishing the hip and chest control objects	12:28
10.	Finalizing the spine controls	5:57
11.	Efficiently controlling the neck and head	5:35
12.	Finishing the head rig	9:30
13.	Building the left arm	9:58
14.	Controlling the left arm	9:25
15.	Custom attributes for the fingers	7:13
16.	Rigging the right arm	7:42
17.	Setting up the forearm twist via the Connection Editor	3:19
18.	Controlling the shoulder pads	7:25
19.	Manipulating the back hoses	8:20
20.	Utilizing Global Scale	7:41
21.	Adding Character and Sub-Character Sets	6:45
22.	Binding the character to the skeleton	6:47
23.	Adding influence to the chest plate and shoulder pads	7:10
24.	Painting weights on the hip	6:41
25.	Fixing the deformations of the fingers	10:35
26.	Adding falloff to the right arm's hose	10:38
27.	Modifying the weights of the back hoses	8:12
28.	Choosing a suitable rotation order for control objects	4:44
29.	Starting the run animation / posing the contact position of the run	8:49
30.	Animating the peak position of the run	10:11
31.	Cycling the run / fine-tuning the flow of the lower body	13:01
32.	Finalizing the legs	11:40
33.	Shifting the hips in the Z axis	6:42
34.	Keeping the upper body balanced throughout the run	5:24
35.	Adding follow-through to the upper body and head in the X axis	7:51
36.	Animating the twisting of the upper body and head during the run	6:11
37.	Wrapping up the upper body	5:13
38.	Starting on the arms	10:32
39.	Finishing the arms	9:42
40.	Animating the shoulder pads	8:37
41.	Adding follow-through to the back hoses, finishing the run cycle	8:27
42.	Upper body recoil for the point animation	4:02
43.	Enhancing the planted foot during the point animation	3:05
44.	Creating arm jiggle to show the weight of the weapon	4:43
45.	Creating animation clips to quickly retrieve animation data	12:28
46.	Other animation examples	8:35
47.	Bonus: Animating transitions	4:42
48.	Bonus: Removing attributes from Character Sets	2:05
	Total Run Time:	6:09:40