Maya Fluids is a very powerful simulation tool that ships natively with Maya. Maya Fluids enable you to create complex simulation such as smoke, dust, fire etc. using its voxel system. When paired with the incredibly powerful Arnold Renderer, you can produce incredible results! Who needs stock footage!?

One of the best ways of starting off with Maya Fluids is to create something simple. Therefore, we are starting with creating some steam. It’s easy and gives you an insight into how to use Maya Fluids without overwhelming you with buttons and options. I will also show you other tools in Maya Fluids which you can play around with at your own leisure to create even more complex and wild simulations.

Once we have simulated our steam, we will composite the render into our shot (I will teach the workflow in both Nuke and After Effects). At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to test your skills on other shots which will be your final assignment.


The only pre-requisites to this course are as follows:

A basic understanding of navigating Maya
A working copy of Maya
A working copy of Nuke and/or After Effects


The rest I will teach you from the ground up across 1 main exercise

Course outline

Lesson One – Introduction to Maya Fluids (A walkthrough of how to use Maya Fluids, and how to manipulate the look of your fluid via many different options)

Lesson Two – Making our steam with Maya Fluids (In this session we will use the tools learnt in the previous session to create the steam for a cup of coffee)

Lesson Three - Compositing the flag in Nuke (This session will show a breakdown of the compositing process in Nuke)

Lesson Four – Compositing the flag in After Effects (This session will show a breakdown of the compositing process in After Effects)

Project Task (Assignment) – (This lesson will walk you through the final assignment that you have been tasked with, summarising the skills and techniques learnt in this course)

As mentioned above in the course outline, the course will finish with a really fun assignment where you will have the opportunity to practice the skills that you have learnt in this course! I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys create so please upload your work!

I hope you enjoy this course as much as I enjoyed creating it!