Maya is a powerful software for animation, video games, and film. It can be hard to learn it on your own, but there are many free resources available to help you get started. For starters, the r/Maya subreddit is a great place to ask questions and learn from other users. The Maya Official Learning YouTube Channel and the Intro course to Maya by Autodesk also provide good tutorials.

If you want more structured learning, there are many courses available online. Class Central has a catalog of over 500 Maya courses, and we’ve compiled a list of the best ones in this Best Courses Guide (BCG). We’ve also included courses from popular providers like Udemy, Skillshare, and Domestika. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, you’ll find a course here that’s right for you.

All of the courses in our list are taught by experienced industry professionals, so you can be sure you’re getting high-quality instruction. They also focus on practical, hands-on learning, so you’ll be able to apply what you learn right away.

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• Top Picks
• Why You Should Trust Us
• Courses Overview
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

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Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 80 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 250,000 online courses and 250,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has 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.

Best Overall: Complete Guide to 3D Animation in Maya for Beginners (Udemy & Skillshare)

Maya for Beginners: Complete Guide to 3D Animation in Maya is an in-depth course that equips you with what you need to launch your 3D animation projects, demonstrated through an engaging Dia de Los Muertos-inspired scene featuring a fully animated skeleton.

Led by professional 3D animator Lucas Ridley—known for his contributions to Hollywood films such as Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One—this course is designed to leave you confident in your abilities and ready to animate an entire project from scratch. Lucas’s teaching reputation extends to both Udemy and Skillshare.

This course is also available on Skillshare separated by categories: 3D Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, and Dynamic FX.

This course covers:

• Object modeling and shading
• UV creation
• Texturing
• Lighting and shadow crafting
• Rendering
• Character rigging and animation
• Motion graphics animation using MASH
• Simulating dynamic effects
• Scene assembly
• Bonus animation demos
• Project files and support.

“If you want to get into 3D, get this course. The teacher is great, he explains everything thoroughly… the projects are chosen perfectly to gain the basic knowledge needed to get through every successive lesson of the course, and almost without noticing, you find yourself having a lot of knowledge and eager to apply it.” Simone I., Udemy learner.

Also Great: 3D Modeling & Character Animation with Maya for High Schoolers (Udemy)

Build your own 3D worlds, creatures, and characters. The course, 3D Modeling & Character Animation with Maya, is designed specifically for high school students and beyond. It’s a comprehensive guide to Maya’s vast capabilities, covering polygonal modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, and rendering, including character and creature design.

The course is led by Ben Taylor, an experienced educator from Meridian Technical Charter High School. Taylor’s teachings are project-based, meaning you’ll be getting your hands dirty with practical tasks involving characters such as Evil Kermit, Stinkfly, Froggy, Big Chungus, and Shrek.

“If high school freshmen can learn to design, code, and animate, then so can you!” Taylor, Udemy learner.

Best Character Animation and Expression with Maya (Domestika)

Step into the animated universe with Sagar Arun’s Character Animation and Expression with Maya. A renowned animator behind titles like Frozen 2 (2019) and Spirit: Untamed (2021), Sagar invites you to learn the crucial principles of animation and infuse personality into your characters.

In this engaging course, Sagar shares the essential animation techniques and application tips using Maya. You’ll learn how to design and express a character’s emotions vividly, bringing them to life.

You’ll wrap up the course with a creative project: creating an expression test with a character rig using Autodesk Maya’s animation tools. To get the most out of this course, you’ll need a computer with Maya installed with the aTools plugin (up to Maya 2019) or the animBot (paid) plugin (for newer versions), and a character rig.

“If you’ve ever seen an animation that made you laugh or feel a certain emotion, that means the animator is doing their job really well.” Sagar, Domestika learner.

Best Realistic Scene Creation Course (Udemy)

If your goal is to learn the ins and outs of 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, lighting, and rendering for scenes and objects, then Learn Maya – A Beginners Guide to Creating Realistic Scenes is an excellent choice. This course is expertly led by Bhaumik Patel, a seasoned visual effects artist and highly rated instructor with 16 years of computer graphics experience, including four years teaching at Escape Studios.

Patel’s course offers two comprehensive projects:

1. The Toy Train Project: An ideal starting point for beginners, this project guides you to create and animate a toy train model. You’ll work hands-on with Maya’s various editors and learn the basics of object creation and manipulation.
2. The Wizard Desktop Project: Perfect for those ready to delve deeper. Using Maya 2018, you’ll construct a custom desktop scene. This project lets you explore a variety of modeling tools, delve into texturing, experiment with shading techniques to create different materials, and tackle advanced lighting strategies. Additionally, you’ll learn to create atmospheric effects and render a polished, final image. The project is designed to inspire your creativity, offering plenty of freedom in scene composition, lighting, and overall design.

Also Great: Modeling and Texturing Interior Office in Maya (Udemy)

Check out Modeling and Texturing Interior Office in Maya, an Autodesk Maya course that will elevate your skills in creating a realistic office with practical lessons.

Taught by Andrew Rees, an instructor with over a decade of experience in teaching and animation film production, you will:

• Design and texture an office interior, including furniture, curtains, and other items
• Master polygon modeling, texturing, and lighting
• Create a fully-lit interior scene.

“It is an amazing course to learn the basics of Maya! I gained a lot of confidence with the course and found it very helpful!” Ana Graciela V., Udemy learner.

Project-based Course: Maya for FX Artists (Udemy)

Dive headfirst into Maya with this comprehensive project-based course designed for FX artists, Maya For FX Artists – Projects Based Course. Perfect for beginners, this course doesn’t require any previous knowledge. Instead, it focuses on teaching through a series of short, high-quality projects, offering a more engaging and practical approach to learning. Each project introduces a specific feature of Maya and gives you the chance to apply it in a real-world context.

The course is spearheaded by Raffi Bedross, an experienced VFX artist and instructor with 18 years of industry experience. Under Bedross’s guidance, you’ll:

• Learn 3D modeling basics
• Manipulate 2D & 3D containers
• Explore advanced techniques
• Experiment with nParticles, expressions, and Maya fields
• Create simple and complex effects
• Simulate cloth on characters
• Model landscapes with xGen.

“The instructor is very knowledgeable on the topic and takes you step by step to achieve the results in each section… I was thinking that these effects can only be done in Houdini but Maya too is a very robust software to do these effects.” Denis L., Udemy learner.

Python For Maya: Artist Friendly Programming (Udemy)

Take your Maya skills to the next level with Python, the leading language for scripting and automation in 3D software. This course, led by Dhruv Govil, a Lead Pipeline Developer with credits on blockbuster visual effects films and animated features, is your step-by-step guide to harnessing the power of Python in Maya.

In this course, you will learn:

• Python code fundamentals to advanced user interfaces
• Automate tasks with Maya Cmds and Qt
• Suitable for beginners and those with prior knowledge
• Projects focused on modeling, animating, rigging, or lighting
• Learn data storage, command line tools, and workflow setup
• Dive into Qt framework, creating custom widgets and more.

As a bonus, the course includes access to a wealth of resources, including software links, source code for projects, and supplementary educational resources.

One satisfied student, Jax Vanden H., praised the course as “absolutely great,” adding, “For those who have familiarity with both [Python and Maya], it’s a great course to get you started on bridging the two together.”

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached this task.

First, I combed through Class Central’s Catalog, reddit communities such as r/Maya, and the internet to find a variety of free and paid open courses, some with certificates.

I extracted information from course syllabi and reviews, and compiled their ratings, leveraging the Class Central database with its thousands of course ratings and reviews written by our users as well as available course provider ratings. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken.

Then, I defined the scope for these recommendations. A Maya course can cover various topics. I chose top courses from a range of sub-fields: 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.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will serve as an excellent learning path to become an intermediate Maya 3D animator.