15 ways to supercharge your Maya workflow | 3D Artist - Animation, Models, Inspiration & Advice | 3DArtist Magazine 17/7/17 1:44

15 ways to supercharge your Maya

workflow

Our experts

Alex Williams, Mark Spevick, Patrice Paradis, Jahirul Amin

01 – Establish a screen layout and save it The standard animator’s

layout is a three-panel view split at the top. To find this in Maya, go to
Panels>3 Panel View>Split At Top. Customise the view, then save the
layout so you can retrieve it each time you open Maya. Go to Window>Save
Current Layout and name it Animation View. Retrieving this will be the
first thing you do when you open Maya.

02 – Create a camera and lock it off You want to set up your camera
straight away, else you will waste time animating stuff that the audience

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15 ways to supercharge your Maya workflow | 3D Artist - Animation, Models, Inspiration & Advice | 3DArtist Magazine 17/7/17 1:44

will not see. To create a camera, go to Create>Cameras>Camera and name

it Shot Camera. Go to Panels>Look Through Selected, and move your
camera into the right position. Once you’re happy, select your camera,
Ctrl/right-click on it, and lock it off in the Channel Box.

03 – Relax your rig Almost all animation rigs are designed in the T
pose, which is stiff and formal, so you need to relax it. At frame 0, relax
your character. Bend the knees, bend the arms, give the face an expression.
Offset the feet a little. Save this pose on frame 0, outside your timeline, so
you can come back to it when you need new poses.

04 – Block out everything from the start You should add eyebrows,
eyes, fingers and facial expressions on all your poses. Offset the symmetry,
make each key pose expressive. Facial expressions will help to sell your
shot. Don’t think ‘I’ll do the facial expressions later’. Do them now.

05 – Don’t animate on the world mover The World Mover is for

moving your rig into position at the start of the shot, and for nothing else.
Except in rare circumstances, don’t animate on the World control. Set a
key on the World Mover once, when you move the character into position,
Then, never touch the World Mover again.

06 – Download the Tween Machine The Tween Machine is a free

Maya plug-in that makes the work of adding breakdowns to your shot
incredibly easy. Download it, install it, and never look back at
www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/tweenmachine

07 – Create a custom button I often get asked by students how to make

your own custom button for Maya’s shelf. Simply hold down
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift while selecting your tool. As if by magic a shelf button will
appear complete with icon.

08 – Change the viewport background A quick way to change your

background colour in the viewport is to press Opt/Alt+B and you can cycle

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15 ways to supercharge your Maya workflow | 3D Artist - Animation, Models, Inspiration & Advice | 3DArtist Magazine 17/7/17 1:44

through various colours, such as black, grey and blue gradient to mention
just a few.

09 – Editable Motion Trail One of the most useful features is Editable

Motion Trail, which enables you to preview your animation and
interactively adjust your keys, timing, tangents, and position of animation
within the 3D scene. Rather than going inside the Animation Graph Editor
window and adjusting your keys, go to Animation Menu>Animate>Create
Editable Motion Trail Options and apply based on the desired options.
This will automatically display in the Maya viewport the interactive
tangents on the Motion Trail for any key with editable tangent types. You
can add extra keys at any time, move the Transform keys directly in the 3D
space, and it will allow you to control your animation in a much more
natural way.

10 – Use the Marking Menus Maya has plenty of Marking Menus,

enabling you to easily access the common tools you use. For example, with
a polygon object selected, holding down Shift+RMB will bring up a
Marking Menu with tools such as the Sculpt Geometry tool, the Multi-Cut
tool and the Insert Edge Loop tool. If you use the same shortcut with a
face, edge or vertex selected, a Marking Menu relevant to the selected
component will pop up. Furthermore, you can always create your own
custom Marking Menus to quickly access your favourite tools.

11 – MEL and Python For some, the words MEL and Python may send a
shudder down your FK/IK spine. It’s possible to go about your work
without having to do any scripting, but you should embrace it. Repetitive
tasks will be done in minutes, freeing you up to be more productive.
If you don’t know where to start, jump into the Script Editor. Better still,
enable History>Echo All Commands to really get a clearer insight into
what Maya is doing under the hood.

12 – Animate in real time Creating a Playblast is the best way to check

your progress, but if you having to create five to ten Playblasts per hour,
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15 ways to supercharge your Maya workflow | 3D Artist - Animation, Models, Inspiration & Advice | 3DArtist Magazine 17/7/17 1:44

that’s a lot of time wasted. Create a low-res proxy of your character by

chopping up the model and then parenting the pieces to the skeleton of the
rig. The skinned mesh can then be hidden and the proxy mesh will give you
the real-time performance.

13 – Delete unnecessary history If you are working on a model for

days, weeks or even months, every extrude, every edge loop added or
vertex deleted is recorded. After a while, you may find that there is a bit of
a lag as you navigate your scene. The best thing to do is to simply delete the
history of the model by going to Edit>Delete By Type>History. I tend to
delete the history on a regular basis during a working day.

14 – Use selection sets layers How many times have you selected a
series of objects and then accidently clicked away? No worries, simply
undo, right? Okay, how many times have you had to go back and make the
exact same selection again half an hour later or maybe a day or two later?
To overcome this simple but annoying matter, we can use Quick Select Sets
(Create>Sets). Usually, when I skin a character, I select all the joints and
pop them into a Quick Select Set. That way, if I need to skin a different
character with the same skeleton, I can do so easily and then transfer the
skin weights in a jiffy. Once you have a Quick Select Set created, you can
also drag and drop extra objects/nodes into the set in the Outliner.

15 – Use the Measure tool If you are aiming to create photorealistic

results, it is advisable to work to scale. Energy-conserving materials, lights
and so on all work best when doing so. To help you check the size of your
assets, try using the Distance tool in Maya, which you will find under
Create>Measure Tools.

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