Computer Animation Arts

Ok, so I know that none of you are strictly Maya beginners anymore, but here is a useful little video produced by David Mattock, of Full Rotation Design and Animation, that covers some of the basics - here's what is featured! TIP 01 :  Focus the camera on one area   | Video timecode: 0.05 TIP 02 :  Snapping like a pro    | Video timecode: 0.22 TIP 03 :  Move multiple keyframes   | Video timecode: 0.54 TIP 04 :  Move the pivot point    | Video timecode: 1.15 TIP 05 :  Soft selection   | Video timecode: 1.36 TIP 06 :  Duplicate special    | Video timecode: 1.53 TIP 07 :  Texture to polys    | Video timecode: 2.24 TIP 08 :  Combine two objects & Bridging     | Video timecode: 2.58 Watch the video HERE You can find out more about Full Rotation HERE

GarageFarm is a render farm first recommended to us by Phil, one that has proven extremely worth it for all those of us who have used it. The staff are helpful and approachable, as well as easy to access when you need help, all it takes is a single click of the speech bubble icon; there are staff on hand 24/7, so you don't need to fear if you need to render quickly in the middle of the night --which is pretty much an animator's rite of passage!-- and don't know what to do.  Even if a real person wasn't on hand, they have various video tutorials and a forum to help you find answers. Like any new software, figuring out how to set things up can be confusing at first, but once you know how to do it, it becomes really straightforward. In order to send off your renders you have to first create an account & download their Render Beamer , which is available for Mac and PC - once downloaded you can access this via Maya's new renderBeamer shelf.  Unfo...

Hey guys hope your all doing well. I have had this problem pop up and it's starting to really bug me. The image planes in the back ground are messing up/glitching out and I can’t get them to go normal again. This has been happening to everything in the scene including the torso and has spread to other scenes in different projects. However the textures show in render but not in the view port. I have refreshed, re-saved even re-edited the texture files. As of yet nothing has worked. I even started a new project and it is still happening. If it’s technical I don't know what to do.  I first noticed it happen a while ago while doing a tut. It happened a couple of times and lasted a couple of seconds (like a glitch).  Recently though its been a lot more, sometimes I would have to close the project and then reopen it again. i haven't used maya for a little while and i cam back to a project and it was just keeps happening. it won't go away no matter...

I have my conveyor belt rotating around a circle like a tank's tracks, but when I duplicate it, it loses these properties and just rotates it like this - Is there a way of duplicating and keeping the rotation properties but with it letting me move it around my scene too?

My tools seem to be acting weird, the top images shows my move tool is not at a right angle, it's at some strange 'off' angle, also trying to use any of my tools they seem to be so small I can't click on the sections I want, the more I zoom into something the smaller they get to the point I can hardly see them anymore, is this some setting I've accidentally done?

What would be the best way to add wrinkles on a blendshape? I was thinking that I'd be able to pose and maybe add wrinkles to the said blendshape through Zbrush/Mudbox (though not really sure about all the workings out for that) Also with the sticky lip addition would it be best to add the sticky lip blendshapes first then add the other blendshapes after, on a separate parallel layer?

Okay - I'm flying a bit blind here, but this tutorial was featured on the Spungella blog today, so I thought I'd share it on here incase it was useful! "Graph Editor Redux is a redesign of Maya's curve editor. Not only does it reorganize the classic graph editor functions, it provides new tools that many animators have found extremely helpful in massaging animation performances... Find it here " Graph Editor Redux Tutorial 1 from cgjedi on Vimeo .

I've got a problem with the IK from the hip to the ankle, its orientation is wrong causing my lady to have weird bird legs. (The other leg works just fine and the white arrow on the ik handle is facing the front but the other leg's arrow is facing backwards) How can I fix it >.< Never mind fixed it. In the end I had to click on the knee joint and in the attribute editor fix the joint's rotation (set it back to 0.000)

I know Katy brought this up previously but I don't know if she got a response or not. On the Mustang Roof tutorial the rear light has already been cut out. Is there a tutorial missing or are we supposed to model the light ourselves? I just wanted to check before I start messing with the geometry :P

Hello, my name's Nick Baker and i'm a first year BA Hons CGAA and i was wondering if anyone knows about any information on how to get hold of a student discount code that you can use on the internet to be able to download Autodesk Maya for free for the first year, i don't know if this is true but from what i have been told i think it is, i just don't know how to get hold of the code thats all lol Any information would be much appriciated, thank you Nick

I followed the Dynamic Cradle tutorial and for some reason when I play the scene Ball2 does a very huge swing. Here's an image As mentioned before I did follow the tutorial all the way, so I don't know what is wrong with it. If anyone knows the problem please let me know.

I followed the Dynamic Cradle tutorial and for some reason when I play the scene Ball2 does a very huge swing. Here's an image As mentioned before I did follow the tutorial all the way, so I don't know what is wrong with it. If anyone knows the problem please let me know.

I have a problem which involve resizing a bump map texture. As you can see in the first image the E4 logo on the sphere is pixelated. The logo was meant to be sharp and readable. I don't know what happened, I have resized the texture in after effects and it came out pixeleated I have askeds some of my class mates but they don't know what happened. Here is the texture without being applied to the sphere. The size of the image is 57 by 56 pixels. I am worried because I am nearing the dead line and I don't want to fail, if anyone knows the problem please help out, if you need any additional information please ask and I will try to post them.

I'm little confused about to how to render a sequence out I assumed we had to do it as a batch render but when i try this it only gives me one image still of each pass Can someone advise me how we are suppose to render out the sequence properly please many thanks Adam