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Character Rigging in Maya for Game Production

Build a Production-Ready Character Rig With Taylor Whitsett

Description

Learn the core concepts of character rigging in Maya and how to build production-ready, animator-friendly character rigs. This 5-hour workshop by Taylor Whitsett, a Technical Animator at Respawn Entertainment, reveals how to apply basic rigging principles to create complex character rigs creatively. While character rigging can often feel overwhelming, it doesn’t need to be; Taylor shares industry-proven techniques gained through experience working on titles including Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, to help you break through any hurdles.


Follow along as Taylor introduces fundamental rigging concepts and walks through the steps to building efficient character rigs for games. From establishing a character pipeline to setting up the bind skeleton and creating a control rig, all the way through to building automated rigging and animation systems; this workshop details the entire workflow in Maya. 


The Nyra character model showcased throughout the workshop was created by the incredibly talented Paul Tosca and can be downloaded here


Duration: 5h 00m

Format: HD 1920x1080

Taylor Whitsett

Technical Animator at Respawn Entertainment

Taylor Whitsett is a graduate of Gnomon School currently working on an unannounced AAA game title at Respawn Entertainment. He first entered the games industry as an animator before later transitioning to become a character rigging and technical artist. He’s worked on a host of both indie and AAA titles for various platforms including PC, VR, mobile, and home console releases, with credits including Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, PWND, Archangel, Paladins, Rival: Crimson x Chaos, and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.


  • Taylor's great at making our tools animator-friendly. He works hard at streamlining our workflow and that's always appreciated.

    - Derek Esparza
    Principle Animation Designer at Respawn Entertainment