Attach and Un-Attach a Hat in Maya

Attach & Un-attach a Hat in Maya Using the Parent Master

In this short tutorial for animation beginners we show how to attach and un-attach a hat to "Monty" in Maya using the free ZV Parent Master Plugin. 

The ZV Parent Master Plugin is a very useful tool that we recommend for attaching and un-attaching objects in Maya.  

To see how to download and install it, read this blog post and watch this video.  

Lock To World Tool Stops Feet From Sliding

We're recommending this new animation script "Lock to World", available for download at Gumroad. 

The Lock to World tool does the same job as the Anchor Transform Tool - which no longer works in newer versions of Maya (since the upgrade to Python 3). 

Sliding feet can be a problem when animating a walk cycle.  Fortunately for us, the Lock to World tool created by Framestore Animator Jesse Ong Pho offers a solution. 

The Lock to World script lets you anchor a transform for any given time range in your animation. You can find it in UG Shares in UG Animation under assets.

How to Install & Use The Parent Master Plugin

In this short video we show how to install and use the free Parent Master Plugin for Autodesk Maya. The Parent Master Parent Master plugin is a very useful tool that allows animators to attach and un-attach objects easily and quickly.  Here at Escape Studios we've been using it and recommending this tool to our students since 2016.  The plugin is a Python script created by Paolo Dominici and has recently been updated for py3.  Watch the video above to see how to install it. You can also read our original blog post about the Parent Master from 2016. You can find the PM official site here, and also find the latest version at Paolo Dominici's site here.

Studio Library - Free Maya Plugin

We're recommending the free Studio Library plugin for all our animation students.   

Studio Library offers Maya animators a Python script for managing poses and animation clips in Maya, saving time on production and helping to maintain style continuity. 

Vimeo Tutorials - Installing Maya Plugins and Tools

Maya has many free plugins and tools which make an animators life much easier.  Below is a roundup of tutorials and links that explain how to use these free plugins.

The Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our main hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies. 

Anchor Transform Plugin Stops Feet Sliding

Anchor Transform by Robert Joosten stops feet sliding

Sliding feet can be a problem when animating a character walking.

You start off by animating a character walking on the spot, and everything looks fine. But, once you add a forward translation, to have the character move through its environment, the feet slip around and everything starts to go wrong.

Fortunately for Maya animators, Robert Joosten’s new Anchor Transform Maya plugin offers animators a simple solution.

bhPathAnim for Creature Animators

The very talented Brian Horgan has just released a new path system for animal and creature locomotion.

At $30, bhPathAnim isn't free, but it is priced attractively and should be on any creature animator's wish-list from Father Christmas.

So, what is bhPathAnim (snappy name!) and what can it do?

Free Visibility Script for Maya Animators

Morpheus

Here is a very useful script for Maya animators, developed by animator Justin Barratt, and one which we are recommending for all our students here at Escape Studios. It's a super-useful tool, used to rapidly and easily toggle the visibility of your animation rigs' control curves on and off.

All you have to do is paste the lines of script below in your script editor in Maya (under the MEL tab) and then save save it to a shelf in the usual way. Once you've done this, it should help to speed up your workflow and make you a faster, and better, animator.

Essential Plugins for Maya Animators - The Tween Machine

The TweenMachine plugin is one of the most useful tools available to Maya animators.

Created by animator Justin Barrett, the Tween Machine helps animators to create breakdown poses in Maya on stepped curves.

It's a time saving tool that takes much of the labour out of breaking down your poses - once you are happy with the timing of the main blocking of your animation.  And best of all, it's completely free.  It has recently been updated (2024) for py3 - you can find the updated version here. 

Why Has Mental Ray Disappeared from Maya?

Mental Ray - free with Maya

Mental Ray is a renderer that comes free with Maya - but sometimes it goes missing. One of the most common questions new Maya users ask is "Where has Mental Ray gone?!?"

Every Maya user faces this problem at least once, and the solution is not always obvious. You look in the Render Settings menu and - Mental Ray has vanished!

So, what to do to bring it back? And why does Mental Ray disappear so often?

Install The ParentMaster Plugin For Maya

Parent Master

The ParentMaster is an excellent free plugin for Maya. It was created by Paolo Dominici and it greatly simplifies the business of attaching and un-attaching objects in Maya - an essential part of the animator's toolkit.

Say you want to animate a character picking up a ball and then dropping it. Sounds simple, right? Well, in Maya, this can actually be a slightly tricky process.

But by downloading and installing this free tool, you will have made your life as a Maya animator much, much easier.

Free Plugins for Maya - PAIE

Autodesk Maya is a powerful piece of 3D animation software, free for students to download, and now the industry standard for 3D animation around the world.

But Maya does have its weaknesses, and one of them is the difficulty of copying and pasting your animation from one rig to another. Got some great animation you want to copy on to a new rig? Maya won't let you do it, even if the rigs are identical.

But now, the free PAIE plugin, created by Jacob Welner, has made the job much easier.  Here is how it works.