Summary

Character animation with Maya offers a rich tablet of possibilities and immense control. In this chapter, you explored some standard techniques of character animation, including the following:

• Joint creation Building linked skeleton joints

• IK setup Specifying which parts of a skeleton 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 by using Blend Shape deformers