This is a two-hour series of 13 free videos, each less than 10 minutes long. In this series, we establish a firm foundation in Maya. We explore the entire animation production workflow, including:

Project Setup
Cameras and Scene Layout
Materials and Maps
Animation Keyframing
Function Curve Editing
Squash Deformer
Simple Lighting and Rendering
Compression Using Quicktime Pro

Supplemental material:

Project Files:  Source images

This 3 MB Zip file includes two .PNG images used as texture maps in the tutorial. We provide a diffuse map and a bump map for a weathered planks material.

Supplemental material:

Lesson Notes

Lesson Notes complement tutorials. They reduce complex multi-stage procedures in 3ds Max to short bullet points. Brief explanations reinforce key concepts. The outline format helps learners focus on the content, rather than spend a lot of time reading. To access Lesson Notes, you need to join the guild.

Here is a sample of the Lesson Notes:

1. Project asset management
1. A typical Maya scene requires multiple linked files of several different types
2. Project folders keep these files organized to avoid broken links such as missing texture files
3. Look to see what/where the current project is: File > Project > Edit Current
4. Create a new project folder structure: File > Project > New
1. Give the project a new name
2. Browse to find a suitable location for the project
3. Click Use Defaults to fill in the standard subfolder names
5. Load a previously created project: File > Project > Set
2. Scene Layout
1. Working Units
   1. Window > Settings / Preferences > Preferences
   2. In the Preferences dialog, Settings > Working Units
   3. Linear working units can be set to centimeter or inch
2. Grid options
1. Display > Grid > Options
2. Set Grid Lines & Numbers color to a dark gray
3. Perspective grid numbers and Orthographic grid numbers: choose On Axes
4. Length and Width:   500 (cm)
5. Grid lines every: 100 (cm)
6. Subdivisions:   10
3. Clipping planes
1. In the Perspective viewport, go to the Panel menu: View > Camera Attribute Editor…
1. Good values for Near Clip Plane:  0.1 to 1.0
2. Good values for Far Clip Plane:  10000.00 to 100000.00
3. Far Clip should never be more than six orders of magnitude greater than Near Clip
2. Repeat this for each viewport (Front, Side, Top)
1. Choose View > Camera Attribute Editor
2. Set Near Clip to 1.0 and Far Clip to 10000.00