Dragon Flight Tutorial

Dragon in Flight Tutorial 

We've added a new animation tutorial to our animation library, showing students how to animate a dragon in flight.

The tutorial uses the free Jaemin Dragon rig by Truong, which can be downloaded here.

The dragon flight tutorial can be found here, and is free for all our students.

Dialogue & Lipsync Tutorial

Dialogue by Joris Van Laar

We've uploaded a new tutorial on animating Dialogue & Lipsync to our Vimeo channel.

In this 8-part video, we explain how to approach the challenge of animating dialogue and lipsync, breaking the process down into a simple, dependable workflow.

How to Build and Block a Scene

Animation Blocking on Stepped Curves: Mark Masters

One of the biggest challenges encountered by student animators is how to block out a shot from scratch, starting off with nothing but a blank screen and a character rig.

In animation you get nothing for free. You start off with a digital puppet, usually in a stiff "T-pose", and you have to figure out the rest yourself.

In a new series of videos, we show how to take a reaction shot - a cartoony "take" - from zero to hero.

The Hidden Secret of Animation!

animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo. 
In this concise video animator Giovanni Braggio reveals the hidden secrets of computer animation. After all: animation is easy - the computer does it all for you! Forget the tedious business of learning timing and spacing - you just pick your language, ask the character to perform for you, and Maya does the rest. So, if animation really is as easy as Giovanni says it is, why aren't we all doing it this way?

Learn 3D Lighting Free With Pixar's Jeremy Birn

Anyone who wants to learn the art and craft of 3D lighting in Maya would do well to watch this excellent series of videos by Pixar lighting expert Jeremy Birn, hosted at Vimeo.

The videos are recorded in an older version of Maya, so there will be a bit of a gap between what you are watching and the latest version of Maya that you are running. But, the basic principles of lighting remain unchanged, even though the interface is a bit different.