Preparing for Animation

Setting up the Scene

So to start the animation process I first had to create a new project file to be used for the scene. To add a background effect an easy technique to use is to create a hemisphere with a space texture effect, and add the texture to the inside of the half sphere.

Add caption

Again the UV texture editor is handy to properly position and scale the texture.

Then the models need to be imported into the scene (File-Import). Upon importing my X-wing model I encountered an issue when trying to manipulate its angle.

As you can see each part of the ship rotated about there own separate axis, not ideal.

To fix this problem I went into each project file (x-wing, interceptor, millennium falcon) and used the combine tool to make the ships into one object. 

Combine Interceptor

Combine X-wing

Combine Millennium Falcon

I created a sphere and added some saturn style rings just to add some terrain to the space battle.

Planet creation

To easily find my models within such a large work space I created a layer for each and added each individual model to its own space.

Create Layer

Now I have all the elements I need to move to the next stage, setting up the lighting.

Ready for lighting

As previously mentioned a good scene should have appropriate lighting to, I am going to use the 3-pointed lighting effect. Maya makes it easy for you to add many types of cameras. I am going to use 3 'directional' lights.

Add camera

After adding the camera you can select its direction, also you can turn on the shadows effect from the atribute editor.

Lights casting shadows

Make sure that the shadows are turned on within the shading menu.

No shading

With shading

Now the lighting is finished, the next steps will be animating the scene, followed by adding cameras.