Saturday, January 6th, 2024 Posted by Jim Thacker

Tutorial: Animating Emotional Transitions in Maya


The Gnomon Workshop has released Animating Emotional Transitions in Maya, a beginner-friendly guide to character animation, recorded by DNEG Animation Director Chris Kirshbaum.

The workshop provides over two hours of video training in Maya.

Discover how to use Maya to create animation content suitable for a demo reel
In the workshop, Kirshbaum explores how to animate a character going through an emotional transition, analyzing how to translate it into effective visual storytelling.

The training is conducted in Maya, and covers how to use Maya’s Workspaces and Graph Editor, how to use the Playblast function to check animations in progress, and some light scripting.

The concepts are taught from the point of view of working on animated features, but can be applied to any personal or professional creative project, including creating demo reel content.

The training is suitable for animators of all levels of experience, from complete beginners and students to more experienced artists looking for a refresher course.

As well as the tutorial videos, viewers of the workshop can download Kirshbaum’s Playblasts to study. The workshop uses commercial character rigs from ProRigs.

About the artist
Chris Kirshbaum is Animation Director at DNEG. He previously worked at studio including Cinesite and DreamWorks Animation, on projects including feature films, shorts and TV specials.

As well as working in 3D aniamtion as a character animator, he has worked in 2D animation as a special effects artist, and has perfommed as a musician on stage, in the theater and on TV.

Pricing and availability
Animating Emotional Transitions in Maya is available via a subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, which provides access to over 300 tutorials.

Subscriptions cost $54/month or $499/year. Free trials are available.

Read more about Animating Emotional Transitions in Maya on The Gnomon Workshop’s website


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