Animate a Traffic Cone Being Knocked Over

Animate a Traffic Cone Being Knocked Over

In this beginner's animation tutorial we show how to animate a traffic cone being knocked over by a speeding car.  It's a simple exercise - based on the Yellow Beetle animation tutorial - which you can find here.  

You can however use any vehicle, and animate it by simply setting a keyframe at the start and the end of the motion.  The timing of the traffic cone is very simple; with just a few rotation keyframes we can add texture to the scene. 

Animate a Traffic Cone Being Knocked Over

You can watch the free tutorial (just ten minutes long) below:

Work Method

Animate a Traffic Cone Being Knocked Over

Follow the Steps Below:

1. Start by going to Turbosquid.com, a great resource for free sets and props for animation. Search by "lower prices" and find a traffic cone. Download anything Maya compatible (.mb .ma .obj or .fbx files will all work) to your desktop.
2. Create a new project in Maya, name it "trafficCone" and set to it.
3. Copy the traffic cone to your scenes folder, and import it into your shot
4. Move the pivot point of the cone so we can rotate it from the base
5. Set your timeline from 1 to 49 frames (two seconds)
6. At frame 1, set a keyframe on the cone. Set another keyframe at frame 13.
7. At frame 17,  rotate the cone so it hits the ground. 
8. At frame 21, rotate the cone up in the air as it bounces. 
9. At frame 25,  rotate the cone so it hits the ground a second time
10. At frame 29, rotate the cone up in the air as it bounces a second time, but less high
11. At frame 33,  rotate the cone so it hits the ground for the third and last time

Beginner Animation Tutorials in Maya

To see more free basic tutorials in Maya, aimed at beginners, see below:

• Animate a Telephone Ringing in Maya
• Animate a UFO on a Motion Path
• Animate a Flickering Candle Using Blend Shapes
• Animate a Simple Head Turn with Monty
• Model and Texture a Cereal Box in Maya
• Model and Texture Dice in Maya
• Basic Lighting in Maya & Arnold - Physical Sky
  
  

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