Autodesk Media and Entertainment Collection

Learn how to create a basic scene in 3d Studio Max with part 1 of a 2 part tutorial series from Envato Tuts+.

From TunnelvizionTV: "In this Maya 2017 tutorial I show you how you can use Maya to create a 2d animation or cartoon. You will need Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software and Autodesk Maya."

From 3D Tutorials: "CGI 3D Tutorials : Quick Rigging and Skinning a Character in Maya 2017. This tutorial shows you how to create a basic character rig for a game or background character in just a few clicks."

Part 1 is about the concept art and part 2 is modeling.

From Mike Hermes: "In this Maya 2016 rigging tutorial video I will show you how to create a simple bird rig including joints, IK handles and nurbs control curves to allow you to animate your model."

Brian Horgan put together this informative tutorial and  says, "A look at how the FootRoll attribute on IK leg controls can sometimes trip us up when animating walks and runs.. and an alternative approach which can give cleaner results in some cases. I also demonstrate how I like to clean things up to remove the dreaded knee pop."

This is another via Lester Banks and is from the rigging artist Giovanna Coutinho and she talks about how to set up an ideal joint chain for IK handles.

In 2015 I wrote an article about how to create a walk cycle with several tutorials and examples, plus, some animals, not just people! This article is a follow up, focused on Maya. Yes, we missed Maya Monday due to the holiday yesterday, but we’ll do it like the garbage man, and bump things back a day!

This is the third part of a series of tutorials by James Marijeanne. He talks about the pre-vis process, which is extremely important in the video game development process. Then he sets up run and walk cycles for our new character. [Via Lester Banks]

Brian Horgan tells you what NOT to do when animating walk cycles. This is extremely useful information, especially if you're a beginner. [Via Lester Banks]

Chiara Porri has been an animator for over a decade and in this video she gives some great advice on creating a run cycle in Maya. She talks about the style and build of the character and how it pertains to the run cycle. [Via Lester Banks]

Another from Chiara Porri, this time focusing on the walk cycle of the female of the species. [Via Lester Banks]

So, what if you're animating a 4 legged critter instead of a bi-ped? It's double the fun! Felix Sputnik explains how to animate a quadruped. [Via Lester Banks]

John Paul Giancarlo, M&E Technical Specialist for South Europe, based in Barcelona, gives some tips on using Arnold for faster renders and some new features. The video lists what's covered exactly.

Arvid Schneider explains lighting and shading a scene from start to finish with Arnold 5. "I am using an arnold learning scene with a fishbowl. Creating shaders and mixing them together."

I ran into a little problem after updating to Maya 2017. Arnold Standard Shader was missing! If this happens to you, this is an easy fix!

The human body is still such an enigma and there are so many technical, yet beautiful, 2D and 3D animations that help to visualize those microscopic mysteries. We had a question about some methods of creating cells and other microscopic elements. First, we have some gorgeous examples to inspire you, followed by a few tutorials for various host applications.

Annie Campbell (a relative of Nicks?) explains how to create red blood cells with Maya and After Effects. Scroll down the page to tutorials to find it.

Jonathan Abenhaim explains how to mimic the subtle vibrations of the leg when the foot comes in contact with a hard surface.

Arvid Schneider explains how to set up a lifelike human skin shader with the aiStandardSurface shader, and it’s a lot easier than you may think!

In the video, he references the Redshift 2 Maya - Tutorial #6 - Curvature Node & Layering Noise by Saul Espinosa. It is below.

In any 3D application that I’ve learned, working with UVs has always been the most daunting for me. In Maya 2017 Update 3, Autodesk has taken great steps to make it easier to work with UVs. The UV Editor has been totally overhauled with improved tools and functionality.

There are some great new motion graphics features in Maya 2018 including new MASH Nodes, such as MASH Dynamics Node, MASH World Node, and the MASH Placer Node. We’re going to focus on the MASH Dynamics Node for the next couple of weeks.

This tutorial is part 2 of our series on the new Dynamics Node in MASH in Maya 2018. Ian Waters has a great series that we’re showcasing.

This is the last in our series on the brand new MASH Dynamics Node in the latest Maya release, which came out at the end of July. We’re featuring the last 4 videos from Ian Water’s great series.

Arvid Schneider puts out some fantastic Maya tutorials and this one seems especially seasonally appropriate, as I look out my window. He explains how to set up a realistic looking snow shader with Maya and Arnold.

Mike Hermes tutorial on the topic.

This one, from 3DYee Modeling and 3D Tutorials, has no voice over so follow along visually.

How to make Snowy Object in Maya - This tutorial is originally in Korean but is great quality so don't fear a language barrier. It's subtitled in English.

ZBrush Sculpting for Maya Users with Create3dcharacters.com. Create a cute dragon with Pixologic™ ZBrush® and learn the ZBrush interface.

This is a free excerpt from a course from Mograph Plus and Kamel Khezri. Learn about how to set up Depth of Field properly in Maya and Arnold.

PlatinumRyan explains this simple process of converting a flat image into a 3 dimensional mesh. 

Sculpting, Quad Draw, Bridge with Symmetry, Curve Warp Deformer, MASH, and much more are covered in these videos that will help you get acquainted with some of the modeling features in 2018. There are also a couple of beginner tutorials for those of you who are new to Maya.

My Oh Maya dives a bit deeper into Modeling improvements. Watch and learn. Scroll down the page to the second video.

Mike Hermes redoes an old video with Maya 2018 and you can't get much faster and easier than this! This is in a Maya Monday feature on Modeling in Maya 2018. Scroll down to the third video to watch. 

If you're new to Maya, here's a quick tutorial to get your started on modeling a soda can. This is in the article, Maya Monday: Modeling Basics in 2018. Scroll down to the 4th video to watch. 

Spicer McLeroy's tutorial. This is included in Maya Monday: Modeling Basics in 2018, so scroll down the page to the last tutorial to watch. 

This page contains several tutorials about installing Arnold Render, render settings you should use, saving the render and things like ray depth, viewport settings, and anti-aliasing.

I’ve been learning Maya for about a year now, but I’ve still barely scratched the surface. If you’re in the same boat, watch this quick video and file these away in your head. Plus, check out a full beginners guide that goes along with the video. Every new Maya user needs to see this!

There are several tutorials here. In the first, Meghdad Asadi breaking down how Physically Based Rendering shaders (PBR) work in a render engine. The second is an excerpt from the Maya 2018 Essential Training from Linkedin Learning. In the third, Arvid Schneider talks about setting up shaders in Arnold.

The human body is still such an enigma and there are so many technical, yet beautiful, 2D and 3D animations that help to visualize those microscopic mysteries. We had a question about some methods of creating cells and other microscopic elements. First, we have some gorgeous examples to inspire you, followed by a few tutorials for various host applications.

There have been multiple times in my career when I’ve been asked to create glass, whether it be for a product video, or for motion graphics with a logo in glass, or for visual effects where I’m turning a person into glass. The important thing is to make the reflections look natural.

Maya 2017 Update 3 brought the interactive grooming tools and they’re really powerful! With XGen, you can create natural looking hair and animal fur. Here are some overviews and examples of what XGen Interactive grooming can do.

Michael Cauchi takes you through a 9 step process to using V-Ray and Maya to generate reusable assets and perfect your texturing workflow in Maya.

Knowing a bit of Python scripting and how to use Python scripts can really help your workflow in Maya. Here are a few resources for you.

Edge-CGI 3D Tutorials and more! shows you how to scatter colors around a huge group of balloons. You can recreate Up!

Here's another from Lee at Maya Short Rounds. The second tutorial on the page was featured on Maya Monday. 

Saul Espinosa, a Matte Painter and Environmental Artist, walks you through everything you need to know about working with displacements in Maya with the Redshift plugin.

Redshift has several tutorials on working with Redshift in Maya. Here is the second batch from their YouTube Channel to get you started.

With the hot weather in the northern hemisphere this week, cook down mentally with this free lesson from Proteus VFX school on creating a procedural snow shader with Redshift and 3ds Max. Heck, you could make yourself a snow cone!

A couple of weeks ago we featured a tutorial series from the Redshift channel about working with Redshift and Maya. We're expanding on this and moving onto other tutorials out there.

Jesse Pitela shows how to make water splash with the basic liquid emitter in Chaos Group's Phoenix FD for 3ds Max. He has it set up to splash over half an orange, but you can splash water on anything you can conjure. This tutorial covers the 3ds Max version of Phoenix FD but there is also a version for Maya.

Will Gibbons, Luxion's Global Training Specialist, goes over everything you need to know about creating interactive visuals with KeyShotXR.

Envato’s CGI Tuts+ has a multi-part series from Uriel Deveaud named “Destructing Elements in Maya With PullDownIt”. Pulldownit is a dynamics solver which allows digital artists to quickly simulate fractures and cracks in models, as well as massive rigid bodies simulations.

The idea of network rendering is to distribute your render over a network, or farm, of computers, to speed up your render times.

The Arnold GPU public beta last week, with the release of Arnold v5.3. Arnold GPU gives artists the ability to switch between CPU and GPU rendering easily.

Here are some great Maya Freebies including free rigs, scripts, and tools... all for your modeling pleasure. Everyone likes free stuff, right?

This week, we're showing the most recent Autodesk 2019 M&E Showreel, instead of the usual tutorial or Maya feature walkthrough.