Maya is a powerful software for animation, video games, and film. Learning it on your own can be challenging, but don’t worry, there are plenty of free resources available to help you get started. The r/Maya subreddit is an excellent platform to ask questions and learn from other users. Additionally, the Maya Official Learning YouTube Channel and the Intro course to Maya by Autodesk offer valuable tutorials.
If you prefer a more structured learning approach, there are numerous online courses to choose from. With over 500 Maya courses in their catalog, Class Central has curated a list of the best ones in this Best Courses Guide (BCG). You’ll find courses from reputable providers like Udemy, Skillshare, and Domestika suitable for beginners and experienced users alike.
All the courses featured in our list are taught by experienced industry professionals, ensuring high-quality instruction. They emphasize practical, hands-on learning, allowing you to immediately apply what you learn.
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Here are our top picks
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Why You Should Trust Us
Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has assisted 80 million learners in finding their next course. With over a decade of experience in aggregating a catalog of 250,000 online courses and 250,000 user reviews, we are your go-to source for online education. The Class Central team comprises avid online learners who have collectively completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.
Courses Overview
- The Maya subject is followed by 2,000 learners on Class Central
- Courses in this guide have more than 85K enrollments
- The most featured provider is Udemy with 7 courses.
Embark on your journey with Maya for Beginners: Complete Guide to 3D Animation in Maya. Led by acclaimed 3D animator Lucas Ridley, known for his work in Hollywood films like Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, this course equips you with the skills needed to kickstart your 3D animation projects. Through a captivating Dia de Los Muertos-inspired scene featuring a fully animated skeleton, you’ll gain the confidence to animate projects from scratch.
This course covers a wide range of topics including object modeling, shading, texturing, lighting, character rigging and animation, motion graphics animation, and more. With 29 hours of workload, this course is tailored for beginners and has garnered a rating of 4.5 from 7.8K learners on Udemy.
Delve into the world of 3D modeling and character animation with 3D Modeling & Character Animation with Maya designed for high school students and beyond. Led by Ben Taylor, an experienced educator from Meridian Technical Charter High School, this course offers a comprehensive guide to Maya’s functionalities. You’ll learn polygonal modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, and rendering, with practical tasks involving characters like Evil Kermit, Stinkfly, Froggy, Big Chungus, and Shrek.
With a workload of 12-13 hours, this beginner-level course has earned a rating of 4.3 from 455 learners on Udemy.
Learn the essential principles of animation with Character Animation and Expression with Maya by Sagar Arun. As a renowned animator behind titles like Frozen 2 and Spirit: Untamed, Sagar introduces you to animation techniques using Maya. Discover how to infuse personality into your character designs and bring them to life through expressive animations.
With a workload of 4 hours, this intermediate-level course from Domestika has a 95% positive rating from 56 learners.
Immerse yourself in 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, lighting, and rendering with Learn Maya – A Beginners Guide to Creating Realistic Scenes led by Bhaumik Patel. This course, suitable for beginners, offers two comprehensive projects:
- The Toy Train Project
- The Wizard Desktop Project
With 18-19 hours of workload, this course from Udemy has earned a rating of 4.7 from 1.5K learners.
Enhance your skills in creating realistic scenes with Modeling and Texturing Interior Office in Maya by Andrew Rees. In this Udemy course, you’ll design and texture an office interior, mastering polygon modeling, texturing, lighting, and ultimately creating a fully-lit interior scene.
With a workload of 2-3 hours, this beginner-level course has garnered a rating of 4.4 from 183 learners on Udemy.
Learn Maya For FX Artists – Projects Based Course, a comprehensive project-oriented course designed for FX artists. Led by VFX artist and instructor Raffi Bedross, this course focuses on teaching through practical projects, allowing you to apply Maya features in real-world scenarios. You’ll explore 3D modeling basics, nParticles, cloth simulations, and more.
With a workload of 9 hours, this intermediate-level course has earned a rating of 4.5 from 590 learners on Udemy.
Elevate your Maya skills with Python For Maya – Artist-Friendly Programming, a course by Lead Pipeline Developer Dhruv Govil. In this course, you’ll learn Python code fundamentals, automation tasks with Maya Cmds and Qt, and delve into advanced techniques for modeling, animating, rigging, and lighting. With a workload of 8 hours, this intermediate-level course has a rating of 4.2 from 1.7K learners on Udemy.
How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them
Choosing the best Maya courses involved extensive research and analysis. Here’s the process we followed:
We scanned through Class Central’s Catalog, consulted reddit communities such as r/Maya, and scoured the internet for a variety of free and paid open courses, including those offering certificates.
We gathered information from course syllabi, reviews, and ratings to curate our list. By leveraging the Class Central database with thousands of user reviews and course ratings, we ensured our recommendations were based on reliable data. Additionally, we watched course videos to get a glimpse of courses we hadn’t taken.
We defined the scope for our recommendations to cover a diverse range of Maya sub-fields, including 3D Animation fundamentals, 3D Modeling & Character Animation, Character Animation and Expression, Modeling and Texturing Scenes and Objects, Maya for FX Artists, and Python For Maya.
Our picks were a blend of data-driven insights and personal expertise. We are confident that these recommendations offer a solid learning path to help you become an intermediate Maya 3D animator.
