Animation - "Green Guy" Maya Walk Cycle

We were advised to spend our animation sessions following this Lynda tutorial on Maya animation. Alongside the video, the tutorial included the Maya project.

The first two lessons covered the importance of pose to pose and timing, applying keyframes throughout to block out each major movement or expression.

While I did find the tutorial series easy to follow and helpful at teachig the basics of Maya and it's animation interface (timeline, attribute editor), I felt a disconnect between what I was animating and whether this process would even work with either a different rig or if I rigged my own model. Especially since there are so many methods of rigging, I found myself worried that when I eventually start rigging and animating my own models, it may not be as easy as this tutorial's making it out to be.

One thing I wish they'd covered was how to set up a Maya project first before importing the rigged model as opposed to just giving us a project that's done the work for us. I get that its ease of use but it doesn't help if we want to make our own animation projects but don't know how to set up a project file from which to work upon.