Compositing for the Lighting Artist by Michael Tanzillo and Jasmine Katatikarn

If you’ve been putting off learning Maya because it looks intimidating, this is your on-ramp. You install it, learn your way around, and start modeling right away with small, doable projects.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Navigate the Maya interface and viewport without getting lost
• Create and manipulate polygon primitives
• Use move, rotate, and scale with proper transforms
• Work with the Attribute Editor to control objects
• Model with vertices, faces, and edge loops
• Apply extruding, beveling, bridging, and mirroring
• Combine, weld, and clean up geometry with booleans and history
• Build a complete stylized snowman from scratch

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic computer skills, no prior 3D experience needed
• Tools: Autodesk Maya installed, 3-button mouse recommended
• Hardware: 64-bit computer with dedicated GPU, 16GB RAM minimum recommended

📝 Description

Look, Autodesk Maya has a reputation for being huge and confusing. This course cuts through that. You get a quick rundown of why Maya still runs the 3D pipeline for film, games, and animation, then you jump straight into the interface, navigation, and core terminology you actually need.

From there it’s all hands-on. You’ll mess with polygon primitives, transform tools, and the Attribute Editor until moving around the scene feels normal. No long theory lectures — just short lessons where you click, move stuff, break stuff, and fix it.

Then comes the fun part: polygonal modeling. You build a snowman to learn the workflow, then dig into the tools that do the heavy lifting — extruding, beveling, edge loops, and booleans. You’ll also learn why object history matters and how combining, welding, and mirroring keep your models clean and editable.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Total beginners who want a clear, no-fluff start in Maya
• Students and hobbyists planning to move into animation, lighting, or VFX career tracks

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Mike Tanzillo spent over 12 years as a Senior Lighting TD at Blue Sky Studios, with credits on Rio 2, Epic, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Rio, and Peanuts. He started as a photographer with a BFA from Ohio State, switched to 3D, earned his MFA in visual effects from SCAD, and now makes pretty pictures for the Adobe Substance team.

🏁 Final Result

• A finished stylized snowman model built entirely in Maya, showing clean primitive-based modeling, proper transforms, and basic topology control — ready as your first portfolio piece.