After installing the T-Splines plugin, you need to tell Maya to use it.
• On the menu, select Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in Manager.
• Look for “TSplineShape” (it will be followed by .mll, .so, or .lib; this depends on your operating system). You may need to scroll down to find it.
• Put a check in both the “loaded” and “auto load” boxes. This will load the plug-in and make sure it reloads every time you start Maya.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

Animations, whether they are in movies, television, or video games, would not capture the viewer’s interest if they were not accompanied by music. Music can set the tone for a scene and is generally added after the animation has been completed. It takes a large amount of work to coordinate a piece of music with a final animation, especially when specific movements must occur at certain times in the song. This paper describes a method of automatically synthesizing an animation that synchronizes with the input music. Our system allows the user to choose a piece of music and a character and outputs a synchronized animation that expresses the emotion and intent of the music through movement.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

When 15-year-old Daniel Grigsby attended the 6th Form Open Evening, an event showcasing pre-university courses available for study, he had no idea his destiny was about to reveal itself. He immediately headed over to the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) stand with an air of curiosity and child-like excitement. “What’s Maya?” he asked the man behind the stand, as he pointed to a small book on the table. “It’s computer animation software. Films like Spider-Man®, The Lord of the Rings™
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

GeoUV is a tool that automatically produces a map from a 3D surface to a 2D plane. Traditionally this process was done by hand. Each polygon of the 3D mesh was chosen and placed, one by one, onto the UV plane. When meshes consisted of only tens of faces, this process was feasible but time consuming.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

A tutorial on how to make an animated giant whirlpool with foam and spray. Inspiration from Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End.
1. Start by creating a NURBS or a polygon plane. NURBS is propably best, but I used polygons on this one. Make it a high resolution, like 80×80.
2. Go into Polygons>Mesh>Sculpt Geometry Tool. Or if using NURBS go into Surfaces>Edit NURBS>Sculpt Geometry.
3. Model a valley in the middle of your plane.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This very brief tutorial is intended to familiarise the user with the basic layout of animation tools in Maya. It assumes that the reader will consult help files to find out more about each tool.
1. Channel Editor
2. Layer Editor
3. Shelf
4. Toolbox
5. Timeline
Okay, so Maya looks pretty daunting, especially if you go hunting through all the menus, but from an animation point of view it’s not that hard to use once you know where things are.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial allows for flexibility and extra control for compositing. I suggest compositing in After Effects rather than Photoshop, even though we’re only working on one frame. After Effects has better layering options and it is much quicker to adjust things (Photoshop brightness adjustments are “permanent” unless you make an effect mask…too
tedious!!!)
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

Creating art in a 3D modeling package such as Max or Maya and then trying to get it to work in the Unreal Editor can sometimes be quite a feat, especially if you’ve never done it before. Hopefully this process will provide a basic understanding of the art pipeline for Unreal Ed and answer any questions you may have about getting your static meshes from the 3D package of your choice into the Unreal Editor and into your Mod.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments