Maya keyframes and animation

# 1 22-11-2008 , 05:47 PM

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Hello,

I am currently learning Maya. It's quite a learning curve.
How much different is Maya from Flash when it comes to animation? Both use keyframes. Can I only do one keyframes animation at a time in Maya? Or does it also allow me to create several animations (body, background sky) at the same time on different layers and keyframes?

Thanks for your help.
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# 2 22-11-2008 , 07:13 PM

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if you want to compare it to flash then yes it's the same but no it's not

each object can have a set of keyframes, so yes, you can keyframe the sky and a model seperately

you don't have the layer concept in maya as you do in flash, so you can't just make new layers and see all the timelines for each object all at once the same way you do in flash.

so if you animated a box you can animate a sphere and their keyframes wont show up on the same timeline (unless you made it that way with character sets)

does that help?

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

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# 3 23-11-2008 , 10:23 AM

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Originally posted by Chirone

each object can have a set of keyframes, so yes, you can keyframe the sky and a model seperately

you don't have the layer concept in maya as you do in flash, so you can't just make new layers and see all the timelines for each object all at once the same way you do in flash.

so if you animated a box you can animate a sphere and their keyframes wont show up on the same timeline (unless you made it that way with character sets)

does that help?

Originally Posted by

Chirone thank you.
So I can create a scene with a background and foreground and objects, however I have to animate them all on the same timeline and use different keyframes on that same timeline?

I suppose if there are finished Maya animations I can download and take apart that would help a great deal. Are there any places that offer me opportunity to do this?

Thank you.

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# 4 23-11-2008 , 08:19 PM

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yes, you can have all your objects and they will exist on the same timeline, you wont be able to pause the main timeline and have other objects play through their own timeline like you can in flash

as for your second question, i can't think of anything

what sort of animations are you looking to do?

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# 5 23-11-2008 , 08:22 PM

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Originally posted by Chirone

what sort of animations are you looking to do?

Originally Posted by

I want to start out doing 3d animation for the sciences. I work for a school and we are into Nano Technology big time.

I also want to get into cartooning 3d animation.

Thanks for your help. Do you have any samples of your work in 3D?

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# 6 23-11-2008 , 09:31 PM

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nano technology? so such thing does exist...

you'd probably be playing with a lot of particles if its for science, which means you'll be wanting to learn particles, and scripting in MEL (not sure what python can do yet)

you'll probably need to find out how to do animation by 3d-hierarchy-structure, blend-shaping, and everyone's favourite... skeletal animation

i suggest looking for tutorials to learn about it. even if you had an existing scene of a completed animation to pick apart, you'll not learn anything unless you know what you're looking for.

unlike flash, there's more than being able to see the library and see what already exists and being able to see the code that affects the animations.
you'd be able to click an animated object and see the keyframes on the timeline, but you probably wont see what was keyed. normally you just key things that appear in the channel box, but everything can be keyed, even if they aren't in the channel box.

also, if you have a scene that was done "properly" you'll be wondering what all these control objects are for :p

i suggest taking a look for tutorials. there are some on simply maya and more on the web

unfortunately for us i dont have a website to show off my stuff... user added image