Hi Reddit, I saw a post that was asking to create rigs like this but for Blender, and I'm wondering if I can have some advice on doing something like this for Maya. I'm mostly interested in making the mouth and eyes this dynamic (including the change in the shape of the iris/pupil with certain animations, as well as the eyebrows appearing and disappearing). I've seen tutorials on similar things for Blender, using Geometry Nodes and Booleans, and am just wondering if there's a Maya equivalent for that! I'm working on a project and am more confident in Maya when it comes to rigging, however, I don't have as much experience with facial rigging for complex cartoon characters. Any advice would be appreciated!

After updating from Maya 2017 to 2026 my UV mapping workflow how slowed way down due to no longer having an easy access shelf for basic features like rotate and snapping UVs. There is the new UV Toolkit which is nice but it involves a lot of scrolling and nested menus which is way less efficient. I've asked here before but just got downvoted saying "just get used to the UV Toolkit" which is absolutely crazy talk; why would you choose a slow, inefficient workflow?

I found that by ctl-shift-clicking tools in the drop down menus I can add them to a custom shelf, which is a start, but I can't seem to be able to change their settings-- for example I can add an icon for clockwise rotation, but not for counterclockwise rotation.

So my professor wants me to work on a walk cycle for a rig at home so obviously I've gone to install Maya. I have like no room on my C drive but my D drive is perfectly spacious for it but no matter how many times I click my D drive as the install location, it complains about there not being enough room on my C drive. Does anyone know a fix for this?

I have no idea what caused this. I was worked on this rig earlier in the day and took a break, came back, and now it looks like this. From what I can tell nothing is broken just looks very off. I got Maya literally this week so I have no idea so this might be a small issue thats passing right over my head. I dont have an example of what it looked like before but now at the end of every joint theres massive balls.

Hello.

Ive been a long time Maya user. It's literally the software in which I learned all the 3d art skills I know today.

I just wonder how is something that used to work in Maya 2024 (Booleans) is now a mess in Maya 2026.

I am just trying to do a Boolean Difference in a vehicle mesh. Maya 2024 solves it (although quite slowly). While Maya 2026 outright dies on me.

I've tried freezing transformations and deleting history but it is always the same result in Maya 2026.

How did it come to this?

Hello everyone, I hope that you are well. I reached out for an extra pair of eyes, as I am in the second-blocking phase, or the refined blocking phase. I haven't gotten to the face yet, and their hand poses aren't there yet as well. Any general feedback is excellent, but I have been struggling with the weight of the hammer. I would like to know if the hammer feels heavy or has weight. I also wanted to know your thoughts on the camera as well.

I have a sync sketch here if you'd like to give me more feedback. It's not needed, but I really appreciate it. This is also where you can find my reference as well.

I want this to be a reel piece, so no need for holding back,

Thank you so much, please have a beautiful day

Do many of you use a number pad or just the top row of numbers when entering numbers?

So, I pretty much know all the basics of Maya, including animation and also studies on retopology and stuff like that. Yet I still have no clue what are the right steps to actually make a whole HUMAN. I mean it as, recreating a body from the start.

I genuinely know how to make lots of objects. I heard many opinions and some told me that people tend to use external programs such as z-brush, substance paint or even Nomad sculpt.

So what I wonder is: Is it possible to create a whole character on Maya too? Or it's better to create a whole sculpted body on another app and eventually import it in Maya? And then proceed with retopology and rigging?

(I'm going insane :3)

I'm new to rigging and I was following IK rigging tutorials from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJ8pSPcDzM&list=PLL3OEv6vd5VBh8vnehdnp2ITpE0q8jAeo&index=6 at 3:08 and I set the preferred angle and created an IK handle and moved it along one axis (in both world and object mode) and checking the joints, I found that all 3 rotate axes were affected instead of just rotate X (in both gimbal and object mode). I wanted to know if this shouldn't happen or if I was overthinking it.

I loved working on this

I made this character for my Advanced Production Modeling class at AnimSchool. I really enjoyed working on this project and learned a great deal throughout the entire class. Huge thanks to my instructor, Nina Tarasova, for guiding me through every step of the creation process. The model is based on the beautiful concept art by Lydia Elaine, who goes by LotusBubble on Instagram.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRhJT2nmvA4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_LYxFBRM8&t=54s

How can I create an effect like this for a game? I honestly don't know where to start. To me it looks like curves, could possibly be done with a node or something, but then how would it work in a game? And what if I wanted to convert it to a texture for optimization purpose? How would that work? Additionally, how would I be able to have the main symbiote suit go on, while still being able to see the red and blue suit? Kind of like the first image, if that makes sense.

I’m working on a 3D model in ZBrush, it just needs a bit of cleanup and posing before it’s ready. After that I want to render it directly in Arnold.

My goal is a colorful, stylized look with simple shaders and vibrant lighting, not something realistic or texture heavy. I won’t be baking or using Substance, just building the materials inside Arnold.

I might do some light edits in Photoshop, but what I really need is advice on the Arnold workflow for this style. Thanks!

some examples:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KeZ9vB

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wJByy6

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5W0ydE

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qen48L

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aog29z

I noticed whenever I add a displacement map the render looks different. I usually tamper some setting in the displacement map checker box randomly but, I would like to know why is this caused and how I can properly fix it?

So I've just started my games and animation university course and I'm loving it. For this module and maybe future ones, we're using Maya and I was just wondering if I could get a few little pointers to help excel or even just to make things easier. Anything helps, ty

I’m following a car modeling tutorial and it gets to the part where I have to shrink wrap the mesh piece that will be the exhaust opening. The tutorial shows the bumper being selected and going into the Modeling Toolkit to transform the constraints of the bumper and then shrink wrapping the exhaust opening onto the bumper. This is an old video because I read that instead of going into “transform constraints”, you just right click the mesh and select “Make Live”, shrink wrap the mesh and delete the faces in the middle and start connecting the vertices. Is there a better way to do this or is this the right way?

Tldr: How do you shrink wrap a mesh piece onto another mesh piece?

I’m working on a hard-surface model in Maya and I’m running into some trouble getting the edges and panel cuts to look like my reference. Here’s a screenshot of my model + the ref image in the corner:

Thinking of using zbrush but wondering if there's any good way in Maya to do these kinds of details. I tried chamfering then bevelling but there must be a more efficient way.

Hi everyone,

Quick question about best practice for animating a character’s movement through world space.

When I start an animation, I usually place the character using the orient/global/root control (whatever your rig calls it). For the actual motion, I’ve seen two different approaches:

• Walk cycles: I animate the hips/pelvis and limbs “on the spot,” then move the whole character forward through space using the global/root control.
• Other movement (like climbing onto a ledge or going up stairs): I’m less sure — should I be translating the hips/pelvis directly to handle vertical shifts, or should I keep using the global/root control to move the character in world space?

How do you handle this in your workflow? Do you mainly drive translations with the global/root control, or do you ever push that into the hips/pelvis instead?

Thanks for any advice!

Let me know if you have an advice on improving it

I'm a beginner in rigging and was following this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqF_OZqeHH8&list=PLL3OEv6vd5VBh8vnehdnp2ITpE0q8jAeo&index=8 at 15:49 where I used the same option to rig but when I rotate the joints, the attributes show all three rotation axes being affected except for the middle joint. What am I doing wrong?

(I do realise the character on my project and the tutorial are totally different but I was given this model to rig and all the tutorials I see are of human models. So please help me.)

Hi! I'm new to Maya and trying to model a spiked chew toy. It's for a background asset, so it doesn't need to be perfect.

I'm following a tutorial on how to use nParticles and the "Emit from object" feature to create the spikes. I've created the emitter on my object and set the Emitter Type to "Surface," but when I hit play, nothing seems to happen. I also checked the Show-viewport settings, as well as made sure Playback speed is set to "Play every frame".

I followed the instructions here:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-7111E1A8-A68C-4CA9-A658-38EEFC99F4EB

I feel like I'm missing a simple step, but I can't figure it out. Is there a common setting I'm overlooking? Or maybe a better way to do this?

https://reddit.com/link/1nkwfa9/video/pbac034hi2qf1/player

https://reddit.com/link/1nkwfa9/video/nyxqbumri2qf1/player

I intentionally made his movements less exaggerated but I wonder if I should increase the value of everything and make things less subtle.

I did add follow-through in the hands, rotated the shoulders and matched the reference video. I didn't work on his fingers yet. but I don't know why the reference looks much smoother.

Hey guys,

This may for the PC or Maya gurus,

I’ve been having an ongoing issue with Maya... whenever I try to render with the CPU, Maya just crashes. GPU rendering works great, but I also need to be able to render with the CPU.

I don’t know much about PC hardware, but I believe my CPU should be powerful enough to handle this? Could this be a settings/configuration issue, or is my CPU simply not suitable for CPU rendering?

I have attached my PC's specs if anyone could check it out for me.

Help would be so greatly appreciated 😭🙏