Instead of waiting 27 hours for a Global Illumination render to finish, it’s possible to achieve realistic results by faking natural light. There are a zillion techniques for achieving that. Here’s one of them.
As an introduction to the basics of using expressions in Maya, this tutorial shows how to make simple wings flap at a controllable speed without setting a single keyframe.
The hidden distanceBetween node - and the more common clamp function - are explained using a simple example: making two spheres glow as they approach each other.
Using soft body dynamics in Maya to animate a flying balloon with a string attached to it. This tutorial introduces the concepts of Goal Curves, Wire Deformers and GoalPP Weights.