Be sure to check out part 2 and part 3 to get the most out of the tutorial. Needless to say, this concept must be understood to avoid potential problems down the pipeline.īy the end of the tutorial you will be confident in rigging your own simple character.ĭon’t forget to download the accompanied files so you can follow along as well. Maybe because Maya handles it differently than other applications. The latter in particular, joint orientation, is the most common mistake we see with beginner rigs.

You will learn the proper creation, placement, and orientation of joints for rigs. In this three-part tutorial series you will have a strong learning experience with the author’s engaging approach. It’s not surprising that most students do not see it as a career. Once both images are in, line them up using the Center attributes under the Placement Extras tab and push them back along their corresponding axes so we have some space in the center to work in.Before you delve into animation you need to rig your characters.Ĭharacter rigging is the most technical part of Maya, right next to scripting/programming. Repeat the same steps for the side view, only this time, bringing in 'maleRef_side.jpg'. In the Attribute Editor, scroll to the Image Plane tab and reduce the Alpha Gain to 0.8. Next go to View > Image Plane > Import Image and select 'maleRef_front.jpg'. Go to View > Default View to reset the camera. Open up a clean scene in Maya and navigate to the front view. You can download the references and Maya scene files here. For this tutorial, we'll be using two reference images, one for the front view and one for the side.

If you haven't, I suggest you check out what they have on offer, as they have some fantastic resources. For this tutorial, I have been given permission by the awesome folks at 3dscanstore to use a couple of images from their Male reference library.

Maya character modeling