How to Create a Simple Animation Using MAYA

Transcription

1 How to Create a Simple Animation Using MAYA Jennifer Soltz July 29,

2 Table of Contents Introduction Safety Information What you need Materials Overview Diagram Instructions Setup Modeling Texturing Animating Rendering Conclusion Glossary

3 Introduction This instruction manual is directed towards students in the Digital Arts and Sciences field. For students in this field who have taken an animation class using the program MAYA, it will be a refresher of the course and an overview for creating a simple animation. However, this manual has been written so that it is easier to understand with step by step instructions that even beginners with access to MAYA should be able to follow. To make it easy to follow this manual will teach you how to create a specific simple animation instead of an animation in general. The animation will consist of a ball traveling through a ring and the ring spinning. MAYA allows for many different means to create animations. This manual will focus on the simple key frame animation type. Other methods, as well as any questions about how to use MAYA you may have, can be found in the help tab of the MAYA program. This manual will go step by step through the different phases of an animation process, each with its own specific steps, including: Setup, Modeling, Texturing, Animating, and Rendering. This can be helpful if you are looking for a refresher on just a single part of the process. Each is specifically labeled in bold before its instructions. A glossary of terms is in the back for beginners. Terms included are written through the steps in blue so they are easy to spot. 2

4 Safety Information Computer programs and computer systems in general are notorious for closing unexpectedly. To insure that you do not lose your hard work in such an event it is extremely important for you to SAVE OFTEN. Since this is a computer program sometimes something as simple as clicking in the wrong sport or hitting the wrong button can lead to a change you weren t planning on making. These changes could allow your final animation to have a different outcome than the one you desired. MAYA has an excellent help menu in side of the program itself and may help answer any questions or concerns you may have about what went wrong. You can also visit MAYA s website: for help with operating system compatibility and program downloads. 3

5 What you need Materials A computer which is on and running A copy of MAYA A mouse with a scroll wheel will make editing more advanced animations in the future easier. Overview Diagram This is what your program should look like. If your screen doesn t show all four views: Click inside the grid and press the space bar. It will change between the four view screen and a specific single screen (depending on which view you click in). 4

6 Instructions Setup 1) Start up your computer, make sure it is up and running. 2) Open up MAYA. Note: It is recommended that before you begin to create a new project. Steps 3 through 9 describe how to do this. If you would like to continue without doing so proceed to the Modeling section. 3) Click on File in the top menu. 4) Hover over Project. 5) Click on New This will bring up the New Project window. 6) Type in the name of your project in the Name field. 7) Make note of where your project is saving by looking at the Location field. Note: You can change this location by clicking on the Browse button and choosing a new location. 8) Click on the Use Defaults button. 9) Click on the Accept button, this will close the window. From this point on everything you save will go into the folder Maya created in that location. REMEMBER: Save often! Computer programs can close unexpectedly; by saving often you won t lose all of the hard work you have put into you projects. 5

7 Modeling Now that your project has been creating, the next step involves creating the objects that will be moving and interacting with each other in the animation. In this animation we are going to use the polygon primitives sphere and torus. 1) Click on the Polygons tab in your toolbar. This will bring up easy to find buttons to create basic polygon shapes. Note: All of the polygon shapes can also be found in the top menu bar. If you would prefer this method, or cannot find the Polygons tab, follow the following flow from the menu bar. Create > Polygon Primitives. This will display non-picture options for creating these shapes. 2) Click on the first Sphere shape. If you hover over the picture it should say Polygon Sphere at the bottom of the page. 3) Click anywhere in the grid window, while holding down the button more your mouse to adjust the size of your sphere. You should now see a wire frame of a sphere in your window, as well as, a bunch of parameters for your sphere appearing in the channel box editor on the side. Note: You can adjust any of the parameters, such as size and orientation by typing in different numbers in those boxes. 4) Set the values in the Channel Box Editor as follows: Translates and Rotates to 0, Scales to 1. 5) Click on the polysphere1 under the INPUTS section of the channel box editor. This will bring up the properties of the sphere you just created. Note: If at any point your channel box disappears and your shape is no longer highlighted simply click on the shape to bring it back up. 6

8 6) Set the Radius to 3 and both subdivisions to 15. You can play around with changing the values if you would like to see how it changes the shape, but for the purposes of this animation those are the numbers we will be using. Next we are going to create the ring, which in MAYA is called a torus. The steps are very similar to the ones with took with the sphere. 7) Click on the Torus shaped button towards the top of the page. 8) Click inside the grid and drag to create the shape. 9) Click inside the grid again and move the mouse to create width of the ring. REMEMBER: The values of size and width can be changed manually using the channel box editor so it while dragging you shape originally it does not look how you want do not worry it can be changed. 10) Set the Translate X and Y to 10, all Scale values to 1, and everything else to zero. 11) Under Inputs portion, set the Radius to 6, Section Radius to 0.5, Twist to 0, and the Subdivisions to 15. You should now have wire frames of a sphere and torus in your window. Before we can continue on to the next part which is texturing you re going to want to view these shapes in a non wire frame. 12) Click inside the window and press the number 5 key on your keyboard to change smooth shaded view. The wireframe will appear when you have selected one of the shapes. Note: You can select both shaped at the same time while holding down the shift key and clicking on both of them. 7

9 Texturing Now that you have your shapes they appear is a dull gray color which MAYA uses as its default. This color is not dynamic or specific to any project so the following steps are going to help you change the color of your objects. Note: There are many ways to texture objects including adding textures or using images. For the purposes of this simple animation we are simply going to change the color of the objects. 1) Click and hold down the Right Mouse Button while hover over the object whose color you would like to change. A menu will appear and stay as long as your Right Mouse Button is held down. 2) Click on the Assign new material option. A window will pop up with different types of materials for you to choose from. 3) Click on the Lambert option. This will pop up the Attribute editor. 4) Click on the gray square next to the Color attribute. This will pop up the color options box. 5) Select your color and click back in the Attribute Editor. 6) Press the Select button to finish your selection. 7) Press the Channel Box tab to return to the Channel Box editor. To texture your other object repeat steps 1 through 6 with that object. 8

10 Animating Next it s time to animate the objects. There are many ways to do this is MAYA, but this manual is going to focus on the key frame method. 1) Change the end time of the time slide to 360. This will set the animation time at 15 seconds. (24 fps) 2) Move the time to 1. What time you are currently at is indicated by the white number on the time slider. 3) Click on the Sphere. 4) Click on the translate button. This is the button on the left hand side that has a cone and an arrow. 5) Move the sphere to its starting places for the animation. 6) Press the S button on your keyboard. A red line should appear on the time slide. This has save the placement information for your sphere at that time. Note: To rotate an object click on the rotate tool. It is the button on the left with the sphere and the arrow underneath the translate tool. 7) Repeat steps 2 through 6 for the torus. Now that the starting places for the objects have been established we are going to establish the end positions of the animation. 9

11 Note: ALWAYS remember to move the time slider where you want before moving your object. 8) Move the time slide to ) Move the sphere to the end position. 10) Press S on your keyboard while the sphere is selected 11) Move the torus to its end position by changing the Rotate Y value to 900. If you press play MAYA will have calculated the motion path for your animation. However, this does not give us our desired result. We must now tweak the motion path by adding more key frames along the way. 12) Move the time slide to ) Move the sphere to the position in the diagram. 14) Press S on your keyboard. 15) Click on the torus. 16) Change the Rotate Y value to 0. 17) Press S on your keyboard. 18) Move the time slide to ) Move the sphere to the position in the diagram. 20) Press S on your keyboard. 21) Click on the torus. 22) Change the Rotate Y value to 0. 23) Press S on your keyboard. 10

12 Rendering Now that your animation is complete it is time to render it into a playable video format. Note: Make sure you play your animation by pressing the play button next to the time slide and have made any changes you want to it before you render. 1) Change your Menu view to Rendering. 2) Click on Window at the top of your screen. 3) Scroll down to Rendering Editors. 4) Select Render Settings. 5) Change the file name to whatever you would like your animation file to be called. 6) Change the image format to AVI. 7) Change the End Frame to ) Press the Close button. 9) Click on Render at the top of your screen. 10) Select Batch Render. The program will now render your animation and save it in the image folder of the project folder you created earlier. You will know your animation has completed rendering when you see the following image at the bottom of your screen. 11

13 Conclusion 12

14 Glossary 13