- HumanIK. This can be found in the Skeleton menu. This shows a menu which allows you to create a skeleton. This is a good starting point to create a character. The settings on this allow you to produce factors such as the legs and neck.
- Skinning. The process of combining the joints of a skeleton to a model. This means a mesh/texture can be wrapped around an object, and the skeleton will adjust the mesh too.
- Game Exporter. This is a plugin in Maya which is an alternate method to exporting models, animations and other items out of Maya, to import into other software, such as Unreal. The plugin can be found under the File menu. This can be enabled by going to Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plugins Manager > gameFbxExporter and load. This will save your object as a .fbx file.
- Rigging. Rigging is the process of adding joints to create a skeleton. The joints will start to become child objects inside each other. This can be found in the Rigging menu.
- Bake Simulation. This can be found in the Edit > Keys menu. This is used in animation to generate an animation curve for an object. The 'baking' technique is used in videogame developments as a processing/compiling effect.
- Newton. Newton is one of the fields/solvers factors, which applies physics based on a Newton logic.
- Volume Manipulator. This allows you to transform the position of specific joints. For example, you can reposition specific fingers. It produces a multicoloured heat map to show how much you want to adjust it. The more of a red colour on the map, the more distorted you can make the skeleton. This can be found under the Skin menu.
- Field/Solvers. This menu has a range of gravitational forces/options.
Particle Effects
The particle effects tool allows you to create a range of particle effects. This is similar to those seen in Unity and Unreal. The attribute settings allows you to change the particle's effects such as Emitter Type (directional, omni), Gravity (if gravity becomes applied), Particle Count (number of particles, Lifespan (how long the particle plays for), or the shading. This could be used to create effects such as explosions or fireworks.
Having a max count of -1 will allow you to have an infinite amount of particles during the lifespan and playback time.
This can be found in the nParticles menu, when Maya is set to the FX mode.
Example of create Physics In Maya:
This example will provide a step-by-step guide to making an active rigidbody collide onto a floor.
Start off by adding gravity (Fields/Solvers > Gravity). Add a Rigid Body onto a floor object
(Fields/Solvers > Create Passive Rigidbody - allow collisions but remain static).
Then add a second rigidbody onto an object to collide with the floor, such as a sphere (Fields/Solvers > Create Active Rigidbody - allows collisions and will move).
A negative point about this, is if you use too many rigidbody components in the scene, it will start to cause the software to process more, and could be slow to run and use the software.
However, this could be more efficient to render an animation out of Maya, as opposed to making an animation in a game engine, especially for a background object, as it causes the game engine to render less.
