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Animation in Maya

Animation in Maya

Table of Contents

Summary

This guide walks animators through the full workflow for creating high-quality animations in Maya using the SYNK pipeline and Ftrack. It covers how to start your task in Ftrack, open and version your Maya scenes, and use the provided tools effectively. Best practices - such as performing physical consistency checks - help ensure smooth playback in Unity and prevent costly rework. Finally, the article explains how to publish your completed animations, including all required outputs, so your work integrates seamlessly into the production pipeline.

Video demonstration

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Starting the task

Ftrack

In order to start working on the animation of your shot, you will first need to:

  1. Make sure you’re logged in to Ftrack connect, which is a standalone app.

  1. Travel to the Animation task of the shot you want to work on.

  1. Launch the SYNK Maya action.

A version of Maya which includes the SYNK Pipeline will now launch automatically.

Maya

Once Maya opens, you will be greeted by a window that will allow you to select which version of the file you want to work with.

Open the version you want to work with or create a new version. The scene will contain the latest exported camera, audio and rigs of the working shot. You can start animating!


The most important tab is the Work tab:

Tools

The SYNK pipeline provides a number of tools in Maya that can aid you in accomplishing your tasks especially when it comes to animating your characters and props.

Switch Shot Camera Type

Align Tools

Other Tools

Plugins

Some projects use custom plugins to make the lives of animators easier.

MG-Picker Studio

Here’s how to set up pickers for characters that are present in your animation scene automatically and permanently:

Requirements and best practices

Physical Consistency Checks

Before final delivery, carefully review your animation for geometry penetration (objects intersecting when they shouldn’t) and floating objects. These issues can be easy to miss in grayscale playblasts from Maya, but they often become obvious once lighting, shading, or compositing is added.

Publishing the version

Now that your animations are done, you can publish them to ftrack!

This is done through the Maya Tools in the General tab.

In order to publish your file, you will have to:

  1. Run the Sanity Check

  1. Make a Playblast

  1. Launch your Publish

Output

  • Maya Animation Scene

  • Animation Camera Caches (.abc)

  • Animation Anim Caches (.fbx)

  • Playblast including audio (.mp4)

In Unity, Asset Animations will be available in the Asset Browser while Shot Animations will be imported through the Asset Updater.