Animate and Light a Candle with Blend Shapes

Below is a short free tutorial on how to create, animate and light a candle using Blend Shapes in Autodesk Maya.  The goal is to understand how to use Blend Shapes to morph simple objects in Maya from one shape to another, and then animate them. 

Blend Shapes are used mainly for facial animation, but they can also be used to animate inanimate objects - in this case a flickering candle. 

How to Animate a UFO with Blend Shapes

 

We've uploaded a new four-part tutorial to our expanding list of free tutorials at our YouTube Channel.  This latest tutorial demonstrates how to animate Blend Shapes (also known as Morph Targets) in Maya.  The idea is to take a simple object (a cube) and turn it into a shape-shifting UFO - as in the example above.  Blend Shapes, which are used extensively in facial rigging, are a simple animation technique that can yield impressive results.