Behind the Scenes: A Study of Autodesk Maya

Automation lies at the centre of many debates surrounding computer-generated animation. Rarely used as a neutral term, it is frequently a marker of changing practices somehow outside the control of human users of technologies, often threatening the terms on which agency is founded. This understanding of automation and computer animation software can be complicated by insights from software studies. Accordingly, 3D animation software Autodesk Maya is explored through a methodology that places an analysis of the visual organization of the user interface alongside interviews with users of the software, in particular modellers and animators. Discussion of the interview material is framed through Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s ideas on expressive processin and Adrian Mackenzie’s account of software and agency. The argument put forward is that users experience the automation of software via their interactions with the user interface, and that inputs generated through human users and automation counterpoint rather eclipse each other.