Maya: Animation Software

I would always feel that how hard the animators work and how the animations are made. I have gone through the basic research on Internet in which I found one of the good software used for animations that is MAYA. And I would like to share my research on animations. Let us see some of the essential forms of computer animation that use the software called Maya.

Key frame Animation

This is the essential, fundamental form of computer animation. The model is placed in a starting pose or position, and a keyframe is set. Some frames later, another keyframe is set, and the model is moved as desired. This process is repeated as many times as needed. The animation software interpolates the motion needed to move the model smoothly between the keyframes. What this means is that if the animator keys a box, and moves the box across the room in the next keyframe, when the scene is scrubbed or viewed, the box will glide across the floor instead of jumping from frame to frame. This applies to anything in the scene - moving fingers, eyelids, moving lips, etc.

Nonlinear Animation

In Maya, there are two types of clip: source clips and regular clips. Maya preserves and protects a character’s original animation curves by storing them in source clips. Moving, manipulating, and blending regular clips to produce a smooth series of motions for a character is the basis of nonlinear animation. The tool with which you manage all these aspects of a character’s nonlinear animation is the Trax Editor.

Path Animation

A path animation controls the position and rotation of an object along a curve. An object must first be attached to the curve for it to become a path curve. You can also generate motion paths by animating objects using motion path keys.

Skeletons

Skeletons are hierarchical, articulated structures that let you pose and animate bound models. A skeleton provides a deformable model with a similar underlying structure as the human skeleton gives the human body. Just like in the human body, the location of joints and the number of joints you add to a skeleton determine how the skeleton’s bound model or `body’ moves. When you bind a model to a skeleton, it is called skinning. The process of making a skeleton or bones, refining the joints, using IK or FK, putting handles on the joints so animators can manipulate them, and over all making the model ready for animation is called “Rigging”

Skinning

Skinning is the process of setting up a character’s model so that it can be deformed by a skeleton.

Constraints

Constraints enable you to constrain the position, orientation, or scale of an object to other objects. Further, with constraints you can impose specific limits on objects and automate animation processes.

Maya: Software Package used for Animations

Maya is a high-end 3D computer graphics and 3D modeling software package originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation, but now owned by Autodesk as part of the Media and Entertainment division. Maya is used in the film and TV industry, as well as for computer and video games. Maya is a popular, integrated node-based 3D software suite, evolved from Wavefront Explorer and Alias Power Animator using technologies from both. The software is released in two versions: Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited.

Maya was originally released for the IRIX operating system, and subsequently ported to the Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. IRIX support was discontinued after the release of version 6.5. When Autodesk acquired Alias in October 2005, they continued Maya development. The latest version, 2008 (9.0), was released in September 2007.

An important feature of Maya is its openness to third-party software, which can strip the software completely of its standard appearance and, using only the kernel, can transform it into a highly customized version of the software. Apart from its intrinsic power and flexibility, this feature in itself made Maya appealing to large studios that tend to write custom code for their productions using the provided software development kit. The core of Maya itself is written in C++. Project files, including all geometry and animation data, are stored as sequences of MEL operations which can be optionally saved as a ‘human readable’ file (.ma, for Maya ASCII), editable in any text editor outside of the Maya environment which allows for a tremendous level of flexibility when working with external tools. A marking menu is built into larger menu system called Hotbox that provides instant access to a majority of features in Maya at the press of a key.

Computer animation software’s

Computer animation can be created with computer and animation software. Some examples of animation software are: Amorphium, Art of Illusion, Poser, Ray Dream Studio, Bryce, Maya, Blender, TrueSpace, Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, SoftImage XSI, Alice, and Adobe Flash (2D). There are many more. Prices will vary greatly depending on target market. Some impressive animation can be achieved even with basic programs; however, the rendering can take a lot of time on an ordinary home computer. Because of this, video game animators tend to use low resolution, low polygon count renders, such that the graphics can be rendered in real time on a home computer. Photo realistic animation would be impractical in this context.

Professional animators of movies, television, and video sequences on computer games make photo realistic animation with high detail. This level of quality for movie animation would take tens to hundreds of years to create on a home computer. Many powerful workstation computers are used instead. Graphics workstation computers use two to four processors, and thus are a lot more powerful than a home computer, and are specialized for rendering. A large number of workstations (known as a render farm) are networked together to effectively act as a giant computer. The result is a computer-animated movie that can be completed in about one to five years (this process is not comprised solely of rendering, however). A workstation typically costs $2,000 to $16,000, with the more expensive stations being able to render much faster, due to the more technologically advanced hardware that they contain. Pixar’s Renderman is rendering software that is widely used as the movie animation industry standard, in competition with Mental Ray. It can be bought at the official Pixar website for about $5,000 to $8,000. It will work on Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows based graphics workstations along with an animation program such as Maya and Softimage XSI. Professionals also use digital movie cameras, motion capture or performance capture, bluescreens, film editing software, props, and other tools for movie animation.