Character animation with Maya offers a rich tablet of possibilities and immense control. In this chapter, we've explored some of the standard techniques of character animation, including the following:
Joint creation Building linked skeleton joints.
IK setup Specifying parts of a skeleton that will behave with Inverse Kinematics.
Rigid binding Attaching a skin to a skeleton with a rigid bind.
Applying flexors Smoothing the joints of a rigid bind by applying a flexor.
Creating character animation Adding animation keys to your skeleton to make your character move.
Using the Graph Editor Refining your character animation by looking at the graph of the skeleton's controllers.
Using Trax Building more complex animation from clips of simple animation.
Using Blend Shapes Making surfaces deform into another shape using Blend Shape deformers.