Introduction to Maya 2026: Volume 3

Texturing, Lighting, Animation & Rendering Techniques With Eric Keller

The third and final volume of Eric Keller’s Introduction to Maya 2026 workshop series focuses on texturing, shading, animation, lighting, and rendering. The 20 videos in this volume are designed to help artists get up and running quickly as they learn Autodesk Maya. 

Volume 3 starts with an overview of the UV Toolkit, using the cappuccino machine model created in Volume 2 as an example. Eric takes artists on a tour of Hypershade, looking at Maya's Texturing and Shading interface, and demonstrating how to build materials for rendering in Arnold for Maya. Artists will learn how to view Arnold renders in the viewport and how to use material presets to make their workflow more efficient. 

Eric also teaches how to use the Substance 3D plug-in for Maya to import and edit Substance materials directly in Maya scenes, and shares lessons on Maya's lighting tools, with an emphasis on Arnold lights. Additionally, he showcases how to create atmospheric effects, such as fog. 

The lessons continue with a demonstration of the various animation interfaces in Maya, detailing how to create a simple walk cycle for a robot and showing how to edit the animation in the Dope Sheet, Graph Editor, and Time Editor. Eric then reveals how to use Maya’s MASH animation system to generate a line of marching ants and covers the basics of Maya Paint Effects, the procedural modeling and animation tool. 

This final volume finishes with a comprehensive demonstration of animating cameras, adding rendering post-process effects, and setting up a batch render for Arnold of the cafe scene used throughout this series. 

By completing this volume, artists will have a strong understanding of how Maya works, how to create models and materials, and how to leverage its powerful animation and rendering tools. Included with this workshop are helpful Maya project files for artists to follow along with Eric’s lessons. 

Watch Volume 1: Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started in Maya

Watch Volume 2: Beginner’s Guide to Modeling & Animation Workflows