Maya Modeling and Rigging

Maya Modeling and Rigging

Regardless of whether someone is creating low- or high-rez animation, the

term “animation workflow” is a bit deceptive. It tends to imply that there is a

linear progression in the process of creating animation. In reality, animation of

all types tends to be a cyclical process of creating assets, reviewing, recreating

assets, reviewing, refining assets, and so on. Perhaps the only two parts of the

workflow that really do reliably happen in order is that the animation starts

with a sketch and ends with rendering.

However, describing that animation process as “just a bunch of things that

happen” is fairly unfulfilling – and is pretty tough for the beginner to grasp.

Further, it is true that very broadly speaking, some things do happen before

others (a model must be created before its UVs can be laid out for instance).

With this in mind, we can start to visualize how projects come together by

linearly defining the process. However, as we work through these steps, keep

in mind that it’s a very broadly painted image and that there will undoubtedly

be some fluidity of order in the process in Maya Modeling and Rigging.