What you'll learn

In this Maya tutorial, we will learn how to animate a multi-character interaction with time-saving techniques. We'll first explore the planning phase of this project, and then dive right in and built the performance from start to finish, learning skills that can be applied to any character. We'll also create very simple but useful MEL scripts to select controls faster, discuss the benefit of choosing suitable rotation orders for control objects, and learn ways to overcome gimbal lock interpolations. By the end of this tutorial, you will have attained the set of skills needed to animate fun and believable character interactions. Software required: Maya 2012.