Sunday 29 March 2020

Meet Sam and Amy - Two New Maya Rigs

Amy and Sam
We\re liking two new Maya rigs - Amy and Sam, made by Freelance 3D Generalist Gabriel Salas, and released to the animation community. The rigs are not free but are priced competitively for student use at $15.

Sam and Amy are Asian-American characters through which Gabriel hopes to "balance the limited choice in terms of race that animators have when picking a character rig, so that they have the tools to generate more racially diverse content in their animation exercises".

The rigs include diffuse textures for the body and shoes, and you can find them on Gumroad.  Sam is available here and Amy can be purchased here. Both rigs are priced at $15, and are for educational use only. 

So, how do our students get the most out of Amy and Sam?

Eye Controller
Eye Controller Settings
The Eye Direction Control (named "Eye All Control") works best when you change the Aim slider (in the Channel Box) to 10 and Follow to 0.

This way the eyes will still follow the Eye Direction Control even when you rotate the head - which is generally what you want.

If you don't do this, then the eyes will tend to wander around the screen whenever you rotate the characters' heads, creating a "zombie eye" effect.

Both rigs are well-made with a broad range of facial expressions, allowing animators to create performances with plenty of personality and character.

Amy and Sam facial expressions
Create a Face Camera
We recommend always creating a Face Camera when you animate characters in Maya. To do this, follow these steps. Creating a camera, name it faceCam, and parent it to the facial controls. Then tear it off (Panels/tear off) so you can return to the faceCam whenever you need it. This will save you a lot of time when animating facial expressions. To see more detail, including a how-to video, read this blog post.

License Terms
No racist, pornographic or otherwise offensive content. Educational, non commercial use only. You are allowed to use these rigs on your animation reel or portfolio.  Licenses are for a single user. Only the buyer can use the downloaded files, please refrain from sharing or distributing them in any way.

Compatibility
Maya 2017 and up.

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK.

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