60+ Examples of Maya Tutorials Step by Step For Beginners

Maya was developed for the film industry and is now being used for design, visual effects, games, film, animation, visualization and simulation. It is mostly used in the film and TV industry, as well as for computer and video games, architectural visualization and design. Learning this powerful application could be nice if you have some references and tutorials to start.

The most significant thing that sets it apart from other 3D packages and the reason it is used so widely in these major industries is that it is highly customizable. Big studios can write custom code to suit their productions using the softwares development kit. This makes Maya highly adaptable to any workflow.

In this article below, well take a look at Various Maya Tutorials for your source of inspiration which help you to deal with high-end 3D computer graphics. These tutorials cover almost everything Maya has to offer, from modeling to the final rendering process.

1. Making of Gladiator

Maya 2008 was the primary software used by building the entire scene. Photoshop helps a lot in compositing the rendered layers and After Effects added a preset effects like grains, light color enhancement, epical environment mood etc

Making of Gladiator

2. Making of the Joker

This was made in Maya for the base model, ZBrush for details, Photoshop for texturing and matte painting, shave and haircut for the hair and Mental ray for rendering.

Making of the Joker

3. Making of the Steam MasterNext-Gen Game Head

This tutorial will present the workflow used by the character artists working at AMC Studio when creating a Next Gen character. There are alternatives to this, but prior production experience has led me to believe that this method gives the best satisfactory results.

Making of the Steam MasterNext-Gen Game Head

4. Sub Scattering of Particles

Use sub scattering of particles, or set up lights that are sufficient enough to shine through flesh or other objects.

Sub Scattering of Particles

5. Particle Emission When Objects Collide

Use dynamics to make particles emit from objects or surfaces when they collide with each other. Note: This is a Gnomon tutorial, and uses the same accessibility method as above.

Particle Emission When Objects Collide

6. Making of Tiger Zoo

Its a very interesting tutorial about making of a tiger zoo from the Artists collection of photographs During his travel in the South East of Asia where he visited Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand and He took many photos of all the animals living there.

Making of Tiger Zoo

7. Making of Skullhead Mobster

This tutorial created by a talented artist Harsh Borah, from Vancouver, Canada. He got inspired for this character when he saw a sketch somebody did in his life drawing teachers sketchbook. It just clicked him and he thought of making it in CG.

Making of Skullhead Mobster

8. Making of the Standing Beauty

This is a very Artistic Tutorial created by Asan Umerov, Ukraine. In this tutorial he tried to reproduce the style of classical black-and-white photographs.

Making of the Standing Beauty

9. Box Modeling the Male Body

cLearn how to model a full male body from the starting point of a box.

Box Modeling the Male Body

10. Creating and Modeling a Character - Mad Eye Moody

If you like Harry Potter, you will like this. Even though it looks nothing like Mad Eye, the tutorial takes you through modeling and rigging a head.

Creating and Modeling a Character - Mad Eye Moody

11. Create a Spaceship Fleet using Particle Instancing

Bogdan Amidzic shows you how to use the particle instancer to create a fleet of spaceships flying across the planes.

Create a Spaceship Fleet using Particle Instancing

12. Model a Rocket with a Particle Trail

Explore how to create a rocket using NURBS, and then animate its movement using path curve and then make a simple smoke trail.

Model a Rocket with a Particle Trail

13. Texture Maps NURBS Dragon

Learn how to 3D paint texture maps onto a NURBS dragon model.

Texture Maps NURBS Dragon

14. Making of the Fruit Tarts

This tutorial created by female artist Hau Ming (Jamie) Li. It is also a photo concept derived partially from some images which you can see inside the tutorial.

Making of the Fruit Tarts

15. hdri maya mental ray tutorial

Using image based lighting (HDRI) to achieve photorealistic renders in mental ray

hdri maya mental ray tutorial

16. How to create FBIK in Maya

In this tutorial I want to show how to create Full Body Inverse Kinematic in Maya. I used maya 8.5 but you can use any Mayas version higher then 7.

How to create FBIK in Maya

17. UV Sets in Maya

Some great techniques on how to create UV Sets.

UV Sets in Maya

18. Secrets of Swimsuit Babe

This tutorial created by artist name Jimmy Chow, from Hong Kong. Making an attractive woman is always a goal for most CG enthusiasts. Its also true to him. After a few years learning, He think its time to make one himself. Apart from attractiveness

Secrets of Swimsuit Babe

19. Making of Ingrid Bergman

At the age of 17, Ingrid Bergman auditioned for and was accepted to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. During her first summer break, she was hired at a Swedish film studio, which consequently led to her leaving the Royal Dramatic Theater to work in films full time

Making of Ingrid Bergman

20. Modeling Morgane

This tutorial created by a Artist name Cousigne Adrien. His first step was to find a great design for the character as it was suppose to be the main character of a short movie.

Modeling Morgane

21. Creating an Old Farm

This tutorial is targeted at those with an intermediate level of modeling and texturing experience and its meant to be a making of. Not being a step by step tutorial, this will resume itself to presenting the pipeline typically employed at AMC Studio when creating a building or another type of next gen game asset. This was made in Maya and Photoshop.

Creating an Old Farm

22. Making of Sohrab

Modeled in Maya. The character you seen in the picture is one of the most famous Iranian historical characters named Sohrab and he is the son of Rostam, the greatest Iranian hero. The author used  Old Iranian books and painting as reference.

Making of Sohrab

23. Making of Portrait of a Troll

A nice tutorial in Maya on how to make a Portrait of a Troll

Making of Portrait of a Troll

24. Creative Cow - Creating a Logo

Model a logo from vector artwork

Creative Cow - Creating a Logo

25. Rim Design Tutorial

the tutorial is done in Maya 7, but Ill try and keep techniques as broad as possible so you can follow it in any other 3D applications.

Rim Design Tutorial

26. Making of The Last Elf

This Article created by Piotr Fox Wysocki, from Poland. The idea was to create exact models just like in a real life. That means no displacement, just pure geometry.

Making of The Last Elf

27. Face Modeling

Instructor Ryan Kittleson shows us how he polygon models the face in this step by step tutorial.

Face Modeling

28. Making of Quiet Room

Made in Autodesk Maya to model all of the objects and used Photoshop to do the texturing.

Making of Quiet Room

29. Creating a Stormy Ocean

Learn how to create an ocean surface, set the stormy ocean characteristics, add a camera and fog, and then render the whole scene.

Creating a Stormy Ocean

30. Understanding Lights in Maya

In this tutorial you will light up an interior scene which should help you understand how lights works and how to setup lights to illuminate any interior scenes.

Understanding Lights in Maya

31. Modeling Tire

This sport car tire modeling tutorial created by Aziz Khan, from Afghanistan. In this tutorial he will show you how to create realistic looking sport car tire in Maya.

Modeling Tire

32. Gear Tut

This tutorial is primarially focused on rendering. It will teach; Final gather with metal ray, DGS shaders, basic polygon modelling methods, Depth of field.

Gear Tut

33. How to create a model of a sport car Nissan 350-Z

This is a step-by-step tutorial that explain how to create 350Zs body using polygonal modeling in Maya environment,but you can apply this technique to other poly-modeling software.

How to create a model of a sport car  Nissan 350-Z

34. Building for Speed

Learn some techniques to speed up your modeling workflow.

Building for Speed

35. Final Gather Tutorial

some screen shot that i took from a tutorial video by digitaltutors about understanding how final gather works and its techniques

Final Gather Tutorial

36. Global Illumination and Final Gather in Mental Ray for Maya

The following is a guide for setting up Global Illumination and Final Gather using Mental Ray for Maya. It is based on notes from the web, Mayas Help manual and good-old fashion experimentation.

Global Illumination and Final Gather in Mental Ray for Maya

37. Irradiance Particles in Mental Ray

Learn to work with Irradiance Particles and lower your render times while balancing out the render quality of your image using custom techniques and settings.

Irradiance Particles in Mental Ray

38. How to model a screwdriver and render it with mental ray

This is a basic modelling tutorial that will teach you how to make a screw-driver and render it with FG (Final Gather) With global illumination, HDRI (High dynamic ranged imagery) And DoF (Depth of field, optional).

How to model a screwdriver and render it with mental ray

39. How to Rig a Computer Mouse

Learn how to create bones, ik handles, rig controls, and paint weights. Also learn how to use some MEL scripts.

How to Rig a Computer Mouse

40. Paint Geometry Tool

This tutorial covers the basics of Maya's Paint Geometry Tool. This can be very useful when adding anything that needs to be duplicated and randomized across a given surface.

Paint Geometry Tool

41. Mental Ray's Physical Sun and Sky

Here Alejandro shows you how to set up Mental Ray's Physical Sun and Sky and explains it's main attributes.

Mental Ray's Physical Sun and Sky

42. Raytraced Shadow Fix

When rendering raytrace shadows through alpha channels you might get an extra unwanted shadow. Here Alejandro shows you how to get rid of that.

Raytraced Shadow Fix

43. Making of Male Green Frog

A steps on how to make a  Male Green Frog image. The author used Maya 8 for modeling, Mental Ray for rendering and Photoshop for the textures.

Making of Male Green Frog

44. How to Build A Next-Gen Game Car

This tutorial is intended to present a method of creating a next gen vehicle asset. This was created in Maya. The asset presented on the tutorial is a generic vehicle with a low polycount that has diffuse, specular and normal map textures.

How to Build  A Next-Gen Game Car

45. Overburn Techniques

Check out this awesome tutorial on creating a metor from scratch and using Peter Shipkov's Overburn Technique.

Overburn Techniques

46. Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering a Believable Eye

Model, texture, and render eyeballs. Note: You must have an account, so fill in the form that pops up, confirm your account, and click the link again to access the tutorial page. Existing Gnomon users can login here:

Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering a Believable Eye

47. Making of Varga In MAYA

A summarize creation of making a nice warrior character combining Maya, Photoshop and other applications.

Making of Varga In MAYA

48. Model a Rocket with a Particle Trail

Explore how to create a rocket using NURBS, and then animate its movement using path curve and then make a simple smoke trail.

Model a Rocket with a Particle Trail

49. Revolution

Awesome maya tutorial inspired from a fiction story which tells a war between human beings and machines.

Revolution

50. Using Sun and Sky in Mental Ray with Maya

With Maya 8.5 mental rays got some new fancy options and modes. One of them is the Sun and Sky system. In this tutorial, Artist going to guide you through some of new features.

Using Sun and Sky in Mental Ray with Maya

51. Tire Cover

This tutorial shows how to model difficult rotating objects.

Tire Cover

52. Tank - This tutorial focuses on making tank treads using Mel scripts.

Tank

53. Lava Effect

This tutorial explains how to make a shader for lava effects using Mayas material editor, called Hypershade.

Lava Effect

54. Prince - Making Prince, by Robert Vari.

Prince

55. Fatjons Performance - Making of Fatjons Performance, by Qu Yu Cheng.

Fatjons Performance

56. High Polygon Realistic Character Creation

High Polygon Realistic Character Creation

57. Gordon Ramsay`s Caricature

Gordon Ramsay`s Caricature

58. Facial Animation Rig for Delgo

Facial Animation Rig for Delgo

59. Street Cop - Creating a street cop, by Mashru Mishu.

Street Cop

60. Classical Girl - Making a Classical Girl by Wang Shiyong.

Classical Girl

61. Mini Cooper - This Maya tutorial focuses on shading and texturing.

Mini Cooper


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