Maya: Introduction to Keyframe Animation

In this tutorial we will cover basic keyframe animation in Maya.  Maya has incredible flexibility for setting up animations.  Any parameter that you can adjust in Maya can be animated.






The first feature we will look at in the Maya interface is the timeline and range slider.  These can be found at the bottom of the interface.  The timeline lists the sequence of frames you are editing, while the range slider allows you to adjust what portion of your overall set of frames appear on the timeline.  On the far right side of the range finder are two sets of numbers.  Put 70 in both so that our timeline now runs from 0 to 70 frames.

First lets explore animating a modifier tool.  I have applied the EditMeshes>CutFaces tool set to xy plane and delete faces on.

I want to create an animation of the cutplane moving up through the object, like an animated section.  To do this I will set the position of the cutplane at the ground at frame 1 and then set it above my object by frame 70.

1. First I will click in the timeline at frame 1 to move the slider to that position.  
2. Next I select my object, and in the Attribute Editor on the PolyCut tab I will set the Cut Plane Center z value to 0.  
3. I then Right Click on the Cut Plane Center Attribute and click Set Key.  Once you do this the number boxes for that attribute should turn pink, and a red hashmark should appear at frame 1.

Next I will advance the time line to position 70 by clicking the 70 in the timeline.  I then will set my Cutplane Center z value to 10 so that it is no longer cutting my object.  I then right click the attribute and again click set key.  Now if you move the time slider to any position between 0 and 70, Maya will interpolate the position of the cutplane.

To create our rendered animation we will have to make some adjustments in the render settings toolbar.  In the Common tab of the rendering settings:

1. Set the file type to tiff.
2. Set the Frame/Animation ext to "name_#.ext"
3. Set the Frame Padding to 3 (this tells maya to put zeroes in front of frame number in the output file so that postprocessing software will order the frames correctly.  For example ensuring that 15 comes after 2).
4. Under Frame Range set the End Frame to 70.

The final step is to Batch Render out our frames (instead of using the render current frame function).  Batch Rendering, renders the whole frame sequence without showing them on the screen.  To start the Batch Render go to Render>Batch Render on the rendering tool Bar.  To see the rendering progress open the script editor.