Imagination is faster than light. It can spirit us to places billions of millions of miles away almost instantaneously, defying time and space in the process. Unfortunately, our fledgling human technology always limps behind our vision. While scientists churn away at the problems that prevent us from zipping between star systems, we can battle our own discontent with 3D animation software like Autodesk Maya. This application provides the rampant human imagination with an infinite sandbox to play in. You can create 3D characters, scenery and animations of cinematic quality that are perfect for movies, games and broadcast television. This software package is our TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award winner because of its emphasis on customizable workflow and the many built-in features for simulating life-like characters. No other product on the market provides an equal spread of features. Make no mistake, the learning curve is very steep. Nevertheless, if you have the patience and motivation to learn, Maya will take you to foreign soil that human beings may never discover without you.
There are four distinct camps in the model-building universe: polygon, subdivision, NURBS and sculpting. Each modeling style comes with pros and cons. (NURBS, for example, uses Bezier curves to create meshes, which are ideal for simulating mechanical parts and smooth surfaces. Unfortunately, they are also harder to manipulate and have a reputation for not playing nice when building organic characters.) Maya supports all four methods, which really opens doors for expert modelers. You can select the methodology that best fits the needs of each creation on an individual basis.
Beginners can start polygon modeling with a wide array of primitives that can be squished, scaled and extruded to obtain the desired form. Once you have the basic shape and structure of your model, Maya's soft selection tool and sculpting brush give you fine-tuned control over the critical details. These features are just the tip of the iceberg – Maya is stuffed to the gills with modeling tools large and small.
Maya gets its name from the Hindu concept of illusion, and it lives up to the moniker very well. No matter how detailed and intricate your 3D mesh may be, your illusion will be incomplete without realistic texture and color – especially if you plan to stitch your creation in to real-life video footage. Fortunately, Maya offers great texturing features and even better materials and physics to give your models that sense of mass and realism.
UV texture maps are a well-known and efficient means of coloring your models. You can create textures externally to Maya, or you can generate them with the paint tool within the application. The result is an image file that folds around the model like a skin. You can add actual texture with a bump map. Like the UV map, a bump map generates topography on the surface of a model by drawing data from a skin-like image. Dark spots will produce valleys and white spots produce peaks.
Maya's many material simulations are extremely attractive. No other 3D animation software can compare when it comes to simulating fluids, cloth, skin, hair, fur and muscle. These features are easy to apply and produce very realistic behavior. We were especially impressed with the muscle feature. This tool allows you to string your skeletons with compressible muscles that give your characters an organic look and feel. Although some competitors provide similar functions, none are as intuitive or complete. Maya also supports particles, rigid body dynamics and soft body dynamics
This 3D animation software also has great lighting options. If you are working on a project that requires real-time rendering (such as in video games), you will want to use Maya's baked lighting feature. This allows you to create an artificial light source that burns into your texture maps and becomes a part of them. This technique produces beautifully illuminated models that can render in real time without expensive light calculations.
Render time is less critical when producing movies, because everything is converted into images that require no on-the-spot calculation. In these scenarios, Maya supports global illumination. This high-quality lighting creates wonderfully realistic images with a slower render time.
Photorealism may not be your goal. Maya's toon shader is ideal for cartoon-like images and does a great job of imitating hand-drawn and cell-shaded art. Manga artists will get a lot of use out of this feature.
Rigging is the complex process of adding a bendable skeleton to your models. This 3D animation software supports IK (inverse kinematics) and FK (forward kinematics), and it allows for easy switching between the two. IK allows you to tug on one part of your model and have other parts come along for the ride. FK does the opposite – it allows you to move one part of your model and have it push the other connected parts. With both types of skeletal control, you can create realistic motion patterns that will come in handy in the animation phase.
Maya also features pose blending, which allows you to adjust your skeleton into several different poses and use a slider to modulate between them. This is especially ideal for animating facial expressions.
Maya really shows its grit when it comes to animation. It supports scripted animation, keyframe animation and procedural animation. You can animate in separate layers, dub your animations with multiple audio tracks, and even render your animations in stereoscopic 3D. Apply motion capture data to your character models and splice models into existing footage with the motion tracking feature. Slow down or stop the timeline for Matrix-like effects with the time warping feature. Edit the motion trails of objects for easy adjustment of your animations. Copy movement patterns from one character to another with the Maya-exclusive animation retargeting function. The list of animation features could go on and on, but you get the idea – this 3D animation software is a powerhouse.
Maya entered the 3D animation scene a little bit late, but it has been able to get a foothold in the industry and eventually take the lead thanks to the unique design strategy behind it. Maya is all about creating a smooth workflow and providing a high level of customization for the user interface. Menus and features are accessible through drag-activated menus and hotkeys that keep critical functions at your fingertips. The learning curve is famously difficult because of the sheer number of features you have to learn, but Maya makes it as painless as possible and serves the veteran animator very well indeed. We loved the tabbed option browsing and rippable menus. Creating a custom workspace could not be easier.
Maya's support for Python script in tandem with the native Maya Embedded Language (MEL) are the finishing touches that ensure your satisfaction with the product. If Maya doesn't do something when you pull it out of the box – and you'll probably have to dig for a long time before you find something it doesn't do – you can extend Maya's capability with scripts of your own.
Autodesk provides online tutorials and discussion groups to help users learn the otherwise daunting features and functions of Maya. They also provide an email address for technical support. These open lines of communication will be essential as you learn the tricks of the trade.
Autodesk Maya is immense. It has more features for modeling, coloring and animating than any other 3D animation software package we investigated. It excels at creating content for movies but also works great for broadcast television and game creation. The only drawback is the arduous and potentially frustrating learning process. This application requires dedication and desire in order to learn and master, but the payout is astronomical.
