Maya 6 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Chapter 12. Animation

Maya was built for animation. Almost anything you encounter can be animated, such as a color, a texture, an object’s shape, or the intensity of a light (Figure 12.1).

Figure 12.1. Toby Marvin animated the shape of this monkey’s face to change his expression from happy to angry.

Most animation is accomplished by setting keyframes. The term keyframe has its origin in traditional hand-drawn animation, in which a lead animator creates key poses of a character—drawings at the beginning and end and other key points of an action—and an assistant then draws the in-between frames, making the final result a smooth motion. When using Maya, ...