Animating a 3-Hit Combo for Games in Maya

Mocap, HumanIK, Retargeting and Animation with Brandon Yates

Learn how to animate a three-hit combo for videogames using motion capture as a base. This is an advanced workshop for animators looking to use mocap for games, detailing Maya’s Human IK motion-capture package, including the retargeting and animation settings. 

Brand Yates is an animator with nine years of experience in videogames. He shares how to use Maya’s retargeting and HIK system and explains some of the important advanced posing, timing, and layering techniques used when animating for AAA games. He also discusses how to branch out your combo into different strings while ensuring all animations flow together — no matter what inputs are entered by the player. 

Upon completing this workshop, you should feel confident using a combination of animation layers in Maya, along with the Time Editor and the Time Warp, to achieve a three-hit combo in Maya with the goal of achieving AAA game quality.