What you'll learn

In this course, we will go over how to properly rig and animate a vehicle in Maya. Throughout this series of lessons, we will learn how to create a seamless vehicle rig that will provide the animator with the control needed to create realistic animation. We will start with preparing our model for rigging with a proper naming convention and hierarchy. Step by step, we will learn how to set up controls for steering and rotating the wheels as well as building a full, custom suspension. We will learn how to clean up our rig to make it simpler to use and be seamlessly passed off to an animator. We will also go through the process of creating realistic animation, including setting up a shot camera, blocking the animation, adjusting the animation curves, and viewing a motion trail. We will also cover animating the suspension for our car to give the it a sense of weight. Software required: Maya 2012.