Maya 2022 Beginner: Rigging

Name: Maya 2022 Beginner: Rigging
Author: Stephen Steinbach

Create a simple animation rig for a lamp in Maya 2022.

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Stephen Steinbach, and in these lessons we are going to be looking at skinning and rigging for Maya 2022. The first thing we wanna look at is parent-child relationships. So let me show an example of that. I have a box here, I'm just gonna scale it up a little bit here, and that I'm gonna Control duplicate it two more times, here and Control + D. Okay, I just threw a quick shader so you can see a little bit better here. So right now, these boxes are basically cube, let's just call this Box01, Box02, Box03, gonna double click on here and rename that. okay, so Box01, if it moves, it moves independently, and Box02 moves independently. But if you do a parent-child relationship, you can have the parent controlling the children. So if I click on these two, and then select the third one, hit P for parent. What happens is that all three of these go, and these are the children here, they're independent here, and these will rotate around the parent. Okay, and if you look right here, you can see that Box03 and Box02 are both children of Box01. Now, you could do parent child relationships also with a middle mouse button, I'm holding the middle mouse button, dragging it up, and now we have Box02 here, I'm gonna expand, if you look at Box03 now this one will control this one, and this one will control this one. And we can change this up, we can bring this out of it here, so now it's only these two now. Okay, and what if I take this one out, then they're no longer children. And let's do Box02 and make that a child. Let's get a child there. And then Box03 would be a child of that one. So now we have these two that are rotating around, and these rotate here. So they inherit transformation, they inherit scale from the origin, and rotation from the origin of the parent. Now, in a practical application right here, we have these objects here, and if I was to rotate, if I was to move this right here, move this up then everything is not really attached. So just by having some logical parent-child relationships we can control how this rig is set up. For instance, if I take this and rotate this nothing happens right now, if I select this and then select here, and hit P for parent, now when I rotate this here, that all works pretty well, then we're gonna walk from here to here, hit P for parent, before I do any parenting, I do wanna clean up the mesh a little bit here. So one thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna select everything, go to Edit, Delete by Type, History, that deletes any of the nodes that we did for construction, et cetera. And then we also wanna freeze transformation, so we have all these numbers right here that are here, so we want to make sure that those are all zeroed out, so you go to Modify, and you're gonna go to Freeze Transformations. And now every one of these are zeroed out here. Okay, there's a curve here that we don't need, I'm gonna delete that. And now once you freeze transformations then you can start to parent. So again, you just check to make sure, okay, so I'm going to make sure everything's unparented, I'm going to select everything here, and I want to Modify, Freeze Transformations, and now everything should be zeroed out. That one's not, okay, Modify, don't know why. Freeze Transformations. And just check to make sure all that's looking good. Okay, after the editor, you shouldn't see a long, you just see the shaders and that's all you're gonna see. So in review, just make sure that when you look at all your geometry, check to make sure that these are all zeroed out, you have to zero these out before you start doing parent-child relationships. Okay, so the next thing I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna select the cone and I'm going to select this object and hit P for parent. Then I'm gonna work my way down, so this actually rotates both of these now. And I'm gonna select here to here it, hit P for parent, here to here, P for parent, here to here, parent, P for parent. And I'm gonna select this one, then this one, P, parent, and this one to here, P for parent. All right, so what we'll check now is to make sure that when you move this main object, it moves. So the check to make sure that it's working well, select the base, and when you move it all up and down it should all work like this. And if you move it around and something happens, you can always go back to 0, 0, 0, it should go back to the original position. Now, I do have something wrong with here. Somehow I did not select, so this did not get zeroed out, so if that happens, if I freeze transformations now and go to Freeze Transformations, okay, that worked okay. So I was able to do it that way. So just double checking to make sure everything is lined up, and that's looking good. So let me try this one more time. Now, if I move this around to the base and come over here and rotate it, let's go back to Freeze Transformation or Reset Transformation, and it resets. Now we have a cleaned up mesh with zero transformations here on all these here, with no construction history and it's parented in a logical way so you can move the entire lamp. In the next lesson, I'm gonna show you the basics of constraints. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Stephen Steinbach 5 Lessons · 37m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons, you will learn the basics of rigging, including parent-child relationships and the use of constraints. You will learn how to use bones, and FK and IK controls for a rig, as well as how to add a skin modifier to a mesh in Maya 2022.

Using Maya’s outliner, you will learn how to create a parent-child relationship between two objects, and then move the object orientation of a mesh for rigging preparation. You will explore various types of constraints and how to use them in combination. Prior to rigging, you will learn how to delete history and freeze transformations to your mesh. You will also discover how to prep the mesh for rigging. You will create iconic controls for the lamp and attach them to a simple rig for animation. You will create and modify bones and skin the model. You will finish rigging by testing the rig for movement in preparation for animation. By the end of these lessons, you will have a good foundation on the main principles of rigging in Maya 2022.

What You'll Learn

Create simple controls using parent-child relationships via Maya's outliner
Generate and modify bones and iconic controls for a simple rig
Apply FK and IK controls to a rig
Bind a skin modifier to a mesh in Maya 2022
Prepare a mesh for rigging by deleting history, freezing transformations, and adjusting object orientation
Test a finished rig for movement in preparation for animation

Key Takeaways

The course covers the basics of rigging, including parent-child relationships and the use of constraints in Maya 2022.
Learners explore various types of constraints and how to use them in combination.
Mesh preparation for rigging includes deleting history and freezing transformations.
The course walks through creating iconic controls for a lamp and attaching them to a simple rig for animation.
By the end of the lessons, learners gain a foundation in the main principles of rigging in Maya 2022.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn the basics of rigging in Maya 2022, including parent-child relationships, the use of constraints, bones, FK and IK controls, and how to add a skin modifier to a mesh.

Who is this course for?

This is a beginner-level course for those wanting a foundation in the main principles of rigging in Maya 2022.

What lessons are included?

The course includes five lessons: Parenting; Basics of Constraints; FK vs IK; Creating Iconic Controls; and Rigging/Skinning the Lamp.

What skills will I gain?

You will gain skills in Autodesk Maya, character rigging, rigging, and Maya Embedded Language, supporting Autodesk Maya Certified User preparation.

What practical project does the course include?

You will create iconic controls for a lamp, attach them to a simple rig for animation, create and modify bones, skin the model, and test the rig for movement in preparation for animation.