What you'll learn

Establish a solid foundation and learn flexible rigging methods, various rigging and character setup tools, and the essentials of building animator-friendly controls in Maya. Popular highlights include: Overview of Rigging Tools; Overview of Skinning Tools; Methods for Parenting Objects; Parent Constraints; Joint Display Settings; Joint Attributes; Adjusting Joint Orientation; Inserting Joints; Nondestructive Joint Removal; Changing Root Joints; Disconnecting Joints; Mirroring Joints; Using IK Solvers; Using Spring Solver; Spline IK Solver; Creating User-friendly Controls; Organizing Scenes with Groups; Adding Custom Attributes; Utilizing Maya's Hypergraph; Connection Editor; Point Constraint Tool; Orient Constraints; Aim Constraint Tool; Set Driven Key Relationships; Smooth Bind Tool; Modifying Smooth Skin Deformations; Avoiding Double Transformation; Mirroring Influence Data; Setting up Proxy Cages; Jiggle Deformers; Creating Flexors; Cluster Deformers; Copying and Pasting Flexors; Bind Pose Node; Wrap Deformer Tool. Software required: Maya 8 and up (Maya 2008 required to open project files).