An introductory course to discover rigging in Maya and learn how to build your first humanoid character rig, from the very first tools to a complete, clean rig.
Rigging is the invisible skeleton that makes animation possible: it is what turns a frozen 3D model into a living, controllable character. This course gives you solid foundations, step by step, up to building a functional humanoid rig organized to studio standards.
You are mentored by feature-film professionals who teach you the right reflexes from day one: clean naming conventions, a tidy outliner and a rig designed to actually be animated. You progress through hands-on exercises of increasing difficulty, from discovering the interface to finalizing a complete rig.
Course goal
Build a functional humanoid character rig in Maya, from creating the skeleton to setting up controllers and deformations, applying an organization and naming convention that meet production standards.
What you will cover
1. Introduction to Maya and its interface
You discover Maya’s essential setup and rigging tools. This first step gives you solid foundations to navigate this industry-standard 3D package with ease.
2. Core rigging concepts
You dive into the fundamentals of rigging and learn how to bring 3D models to life. You understand the key principles that turn a simple character into a model ready to be animated.
3. Building a simple skeleton
You learn to design a functional skeleton to animate characters and props. By building a simple rig, you master the basics needed for believable animation.
4. Building a simple setup (Linear Deformers)
You get started with Linear Deformers to add basic deformations to your models. You learn to configure simple but powerful tools for efficient animation.
5. Building a humanoid skeleton
You learn to build a complete skeleton for a humanoid character, mastering bone placement and organization for fluid, realistic animation.
6. Setting up basic controllers
You discover how to create the essential controllers to easily manipulate your character’s movements and streamline your animation workflow.
7. Building custom controllers
You learn to integrate custom controllers for precise movement control and maximum workflow efficiency.
8. Rigging hands and feet
You build more advanced systems to animate hands and feet realistically: IK/FK switch, animation-friendly attributes, mirror joints, and more.
9. Advanced deformations
You explore advanced deformation techniques to bring your characters to life, with subtle body movement and more expressive deformations.
10. Finalization
You consolidate your rig by connecting all the modules, creating global controllers for smooth, intuitive manipulation, and applying professional organization to the outliner and naming. You also learn to manage animation controller visibility and lock attributes, for a clean, optimized workflow ready for studio requirements.
What you will get
An experience close to a real feature-film production.
Live sessions with a working mentor, in small groups.
Shots tailored to what recruiters expect.
A certificate of completion for professional training.
Guided by a feature-film professional
Jean-Marc Imele
Rigging Supervisor · Illumination Studio Paris
Rigging is the invisible framework that brings every character to life. Without it, no animation is possible. Jean-Marc has made it his specialty at the highest level of the industry.…
Filmography:
Despicable Me 2 · Minions · Despicable Me 3 · The Super Mario Bros. Movie
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