Maya can also be used for animation purpose. The software has been used in the development of some commercially released movies including Kung Fu Panda, Harry Potter and Transformers (Wolfe, 2012).
Tools:
The user has a timeline on the lower side of the Maya software, as shown in the image below with coloured annotations.
- Timeline - The horizontal bar showing the time slider's progress between the start and end of the
- Playback Tools - Allow you to pause, play, rewind and fast forward. You can rewind/fast forward by key or frame.
- Change playback range - A bar to control the playback range of the animation. This could allow you can add delays/pauses.
- Animate specific layer(s) - A tool to add attributes to specific 'layers'.
- Character sets - A tool to group specific models together, and force an animation onto that group only.
- Time Slider - This is the moving line showing the progress of the animation, during playtime (as seen in the above video).
The timeline and time slider can be personalized to suit the user. They can change the height and time slider size. There are further settings which allow the user to enable looping and adjust the playback speed in FPS. The playback speed can be adjusted between 15-60 fps, although the user can choose a custom speed, if desired.
The looping options are:
- ONCE - causes the animation to repeat once, then stop
- CONTINUOUS - causes the animation to always repeat, without stopping
- OSCILLATE - causes the animation to play once to the end of the animation, then reverse back to the start.
These tools can be found in the Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences, and scrolling down to the tab named Time Slider.
To perform an animation:
To setup an animation on a model, place the object in a starting position, go to the first frame and press 'S' to record.
Then move the object to a final position, go to the last frame you wish to use and press 'S' to record.
Graph Editor
The Graph Editor window allows you to adjust the object's movement speed, during animation. The user can adjust the graph's curve which could be used to smooth out the animation. When you first use the animation, the object will accelerate forward, then slow down. The graph editor tool can be used to cause it to accelerate continuously without slowing down. This tool can be found in Windows>Animation Editor>Graph Editor.
Motion Path
You could make a model follow a 2D object, by going on highlighting object and path, Constrain > Motion Path. This is a quick and easy way to allow you to make an object follow around a route. You can also adjust the rotations over the course of the path, on each axis.
What I have learned from this lecture is that the tools in Maya allow users to easily and quickly produce animations. I was able to made a cube move between two different points smoothly. I found the Motion
Reference:
Wolfe J., 2012. Autodesk Tools Used on 14 Oscar-Nominated Films. AWN, [online] (Last Updated 9.36 AM on 17th February 2012). Available at <https://www.awn.com/news/autodesk-tools-used-14-oscar-nominated-films> [Accessed on 28 Nov 2018].
