Although procedural animation was always possible in Maya, it never has been easier. The Motion Graphics Toolkit in Maya 2016 Ext 2, MASH, lets you easily maintain a procedural and easy way to make animation changes. One possible and simple use is reassembling objects.

how to use Maya’s new Motion Graphics tools for a common animation situation

Here, Autodesk’s Lee Frazier posts a look at how you can add a model of an automobile to MASH, and then erasable it using super-easy procedural workflow. MASH will easily allow you to replicate an entire complex model like this, but there is a bit of a trick to get it to place all the pieces in the right place and the right order.

Once that is done, it is really easy to animate all the pieces reassembling, using a couple of keyframes on a random node. C4D users have always enjoyed this type of workflow, but for Maya users, the new motion graphics toolkit is still very a new premise.

If you are just getting started with the motion graphics toolkit in Maya, visiting MainFrame on Vimeo has a host of tutorials that can get you up and running quickly.

2 comments

  1. Chris Hardcastle

    Hey Lester, thanks for link. Much appreciated. Any chance you could update it to point people to our MASH channel? https://vimeo.com/channels/mainframemash It’ll be easier for people to find the right vids.

    Cheers,
    Chris

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