MoCap Tutorial at Vimeo by Steve Lall

Our very own studio assistant Steven Lall has recorded an excellent video tutorial demonstrating the use of motion capture in animation, showing animators how to take a character with motion capture data and clean it up to create polished animation.

Performance Capture, aka Motion Capture, aka "MoCap", is a growing part of the animation industry. It's something our students need to be able to work with effectively, as many animation studios - and especially games studios - rely heavily on MoCap for their animation pipeline.

The tutorial uses the popular and dependable Norman rig, which can be downloaded free here. You can find the tutorial here.

The Secret of Great Animation Revealed

animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo. 
In this animation tutorial video Giovanni Braggio reveals - at long last - the secret of animation. As Giovanni puts it: "animation is easy - the computer does it all for you". Forget the tedious business of learning timing and spacing - you just pick your language, ask the character to perform for you, and Maya does the rest. Watch the tutorial to see why animation really is as easy as Giovanni says it is.

Meet Norman - The Animator's Best Friend

There are many free rigs available to Maya animators looking to practice and learn their craft. Norman, Max, Morpheus - all excellent rigs available at no charge and easy to download, all free for non-commercial use.

But beware - all rigs are different and each one has its own quirks. All take time to get used to, and each one has its frustrations.  Norman was one of the first character rigs made available for student use, free on a non-commercial license. Norman is reliable, relatively simple to use, and highly customisable.