The MAYA BASICS course is a 5 day fast-track introduction to Maya. It covers all the essential base level topics needed to get started in 3D animation with Maya. This course is one-to-one with one tutor assigned to one student.

The 5 day MAYA BASICS is structured as follows:

Day 1. Polygons. Every aspect of creating, cutting, shaping and extruding, using all the methods of shape creation (loft, extrude etc.)

Day 2. NURBs. All aspects of this type of geometry and why it is so useful to animators. In the afternoon we will do sub-division of surfaces for organic life forms.

Day 3. Deformers. Typically those used for shape creation and animation. They include lattices, non-linear, wires, blend shapes and bones. Animating with keyframes.

Day 4. Lighting and texturing. There are very different methods for texturing on polygons and NURBs. You will need to know how to attach a texture to a surface and position it precisely.

Day 5. Physics using soft and rigid bodies and how to animate with them. Basic hierarchical animation using a simple table lamp (and inspired by PIXAR's 'Luxo Junior'.)

Please be aware that there will be some inevitable timetable cross-over in the subjects taught over the 5 day period. Some topics may be covered earlier than scheduled and some later.

Training starts at 10 in the morning and finishes at 6 in the evening. There is a one hour break for lunch.