Maya Graph Editor Help

Alright, so here are websites with explanations about the Graph Editor. It's good stuff, so make sure you take a look at them to see if there is anything you can use.
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Maya Animation Basics

















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Graph Editor Icon Description (LOTS of text - might get confusing, give it a try)

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Starting in with Animation: Setting keyframes and the graph editor - this one's a PDF (make sure you have Adobe Reader installed), it's a very good introduction

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Of course hitting F1 on your keyboard while in Maya should bring up the help menu.
If you have questions let me know.

You need set the scene frame rate to 24fps and the default curves to linear. Autokey is optional, I like it, other people don't, your choice.
By having the keys on linear, your animation will look robotic and have hiccups. That's okay, you can later on set individual keys to spline and adjust the tangents.
If you set everything to spline, your animation will look "floaty" and "swimmy". That's especially bad when you have a character with feet. The feet should be locked to the ground, otherwise you get the effect of "skating", which is a no no.