Maya Tutorials: What to Watch and 20 of Our Favorites

It’s no secret that Maya is one of the preferred 3D animation and visual effects software in the world – and rightfully so. The Digital-Tutors instructors have spent years creating the world’s largest destination for Maya Tutorials and what better way to highlight the growing Maya library, then by looking back on which Maya tutorials were some of our favorites and which tutorials every Maya artist should watch.

Introduction to Maya 2013
This is one of the all-around favorite Maya tutorials because it touches every major aspect of Maya in a fun and entertaining project. It gives you a feel for many different disciplines without bogging viewers down in the details. It’s not only a beautiful project, but each piece was carefully crafted to give the most information and educational value while working together to create an appealing render.

12 Principles of Animation in Maya
The Principles of Animation are one of the most important foundation ideas to understand whenever dealing with animation. This Maya tutorial covers the Principles that were discovered and documented during Disney’s Golden years, but they still apply to our work today. This Maya tutorial is especially impressive to our instructors, as they have used it to bring the Principles into other software and Delano makes it look easy!

Transforming Robot Production Pipeline 04: Robot Modeling Tutorial
The unique workflow used to build the Transforming Robot makes this Maya tutorial one of our favorites. It’s also a great example of a workflow that uses other applications and involves working with other artists to make a solid robot model.

Transforming Robot Production Pipeline: Rigging Tutorial
The entire pipeline is filled with an abundance of tricks and tips, but this in-depth Maya tutorial is where the magic happens! The countless R&D for rigging a transforming mechanism is all laid out in one tutorial.

Motorcycle Modeling Techniques in Maya
This Maya tutorial is one of our favorites because we’ve gotten to see a lot of members create their own versions of the motorcycle. There are so many different kinds of pieces that it really gives us an opportunity to use a lot of different tools and techniques that you can use in plenty of modeling projects.

Rendering Interiors with mental ray and Maya
We love the technique used in this tutorial to not only get a photorealistic render, but to use the actual IES lighting information from real lights to do it.

mental ray Nodes Reference Library
The number of hours these individual Maya tutorials that this reference library will save you is incomprehensible.

Character and Scene Development in ZBrush and Maya
Teaching the process of building up this scene was really a lot of fun. While the tutorial relies on both Maya and ZBrush, the rendering content in Maya is just phenomenal.

Character Interaction in Maya
This Maya tutorial goes into detail and breaks down techniques and tips for animating multiple characters – something every artist thinking about character interaction using Maya needs to know.

‘Infiltrator’ Production Pipeline Volume 5: Animation

This tutorial gives all the tips, secrets and techniques that simplifies the task of animating a multi-limbed creature.

Linear Workflow Rendering Strategies in Maya
The linear workflow is so important to get realistic renders and composites and it’s a very misunderstood part of Maya and the 3D workflow in general. While this Maya tutorial is short, it’s to the point and covers a surprising amount of information not only on how to set-up a linear workflow, but also many of the little ‘gotcha’s along the way that trip people up.

Creative Development: Exploring mental ray Materials in Maya with Ed Whetstone
Sometimes it takes laying out information you know in a different way before all the puzzle pieces lock together. While Ed talks about many properties and physics in this tutorial that people may know going in, he laid them out in a manner that allows you to connect them together and understand them much better. Going through the tutorial and his thought processes and how he lays out material assembly is a valuable experience.

Character Rigging for Production in Maya
This is one the most popular Maya tutorials and is a boot camp of rigging training that is well worth the watch for creating great, animator friendly rigs.

Creative Development: Modeling a Female Character for Animation in Maya with Gene Arvan
New to Digital-Tutors, but one of the most viewed Maya tutorials of that month’s release, this tutorial covers the foundations of modeling a high resolution female that will deform properly when animated.

Want to know what Maya tutorials in the Creative Development series members are watching? Here are the top three tutorials:

Creative Development: Guerrilla Lighting and Rendering Tactics in Maya with Ed Whetstone
Intended for small-scale productions, this Maya tutorial walks through one lighting and rendering workflow that introduces new tools, techniques, and workarounds.

Creative Development: 3D for Illustration in Maya and Photoshop with Pat Imrie
In this Maya tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a 3D illustration for use on a magazine cover.

Creative Development: Using HDR Images for 3D Lighting in Maya with Jon Tojek
This tutorial is a guide to using HDR panoramic images for lighting with Maya and mental ray.

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