Making a Space Animation in Fusion 360 and Autodesk Maya

In this Instructable, I will walk you through my workflow: designing a stylized astronaut suit in Autodesk Fusion 360, applying materials using the Appearance tool, exporting it as an FBX, and finally importing it into Autodesk Maya to create a cinematic floating animation against an interesting space background.

Software: Autodesk Fusion 360 (for modeling), Autodesk Maya (for animation/rendering).

Hardware: Laptop/PC with a dedicated GPU recommended for rendering.

Time: Approx. 3-4 days.

Tip: As a student, you can apply for a student Autodesk account and use these softwares for free.

I chose Fusion 360 for the modeling phase because its parametric timeline allows for easy edits to hard-surface parts like the helmet and life-support pack.

1. The Helmet: I started with a generic Sphere primitive. I used the "Split Body" tool to cut out the visor area and then used the "Press/Pull" tool to extrude the rim, giving it depth.
2. The Suit: Using the "Create Form" (T-Splines) environment, I sculpted the torso and limbs. This allowed me to get organic, puffy curves for the pressure suit while maintaining a clean topology.
3. The Backpack: I switched back to the Solid workspace to sketch and extrude the life support system (PLSS) on the back, adding small cylinders for oxygen tanks and thrusters.

Note: The image currently seems to not have color on the astronaut, but it has not yet been rendered, giving it the current plan look.

Before leaving Fusion, I wanted to visualize the materials.

1. Press A to open the Appearance panel.
2. Visor: I searched for "Gold" and applied "Gold - Polished" to the visor face to simulate the protective gold coating on real EVA suits.
3. Suit: I applied a "Plastic - Matte (White)" to the body components.
4. Details: I used "Aluminum - Anodized (Red)" and "Rubber - Black" for the connectors and joints to add contrast.

Tip: Adding colors may not work with other software, so I would recommend Autodesk Maya for beginners.

To move from a CAD environment to an animation environment, I needed a file format that handles 3D geometry well.

1. In Fusion 360, I went to File > Export.
2. I selected FBX as the file type.
3. Crucial Step: I made sure to set the resolution to "High" to ensure the round parts of the helmet remained smooth and didn't look blocky in Maya.

GLTF is another commonly used file type, but it requires add-ins for Fusion and is better for web interfaces. If creating animations for a website, I would highly suggest this file format.

With my FBX file ready, it was time to leave the engineering world of Fusion 360 and enter the animation world of Autodesk Maya.

1. Importing the Model: I opened Maya and went to File > Import. When selecting my file, I made sure to check "Unlock Normals" in the options panel on the right. I learned the hard way that if you don't do this, the smooth curves of the helmet can come in looking sharp and "faceted," which ruins the look.
2. Getting Organized: My astronaut came in as a bunch of separate parts (visor, backpack, tubes). To keep my sanity, I selected everything in the Outliner and hit Ctrl + G to group them into a single "Astronaut_Grp."
3. Fixing the Pivot: The pivot point (the axis the object rotates around) was stuck at the center of the world (0,0,0) rather than on the astronaut. I went to Modify > Center Pivot. Now, when I rotate the model, it spins perfectly around its own waist—essential for that tumbling-in-space look.

I needed a background that felt infinite. A flat image wouldn't cut it because the camera needs to move, so I built what I call a Sky Dome.

1. The Giant Sphere: I created a simple Polygon Sphere and scaled it up massively (to about 1000) so it encompassed the entire scene.
2. Flipping the Normals: By default, you only see the outside of a sphere. Since my camera is inside it, the sphere looked invisible. I selected the sphere and went to Mesh Display > Reverse. This flipped the geometry so the texture would display on the inside walls.
3. Making the Stars: I assigned a standard Lambert material to the sphere and mapped a high-res 4K Milky Way image to the Color channel.
4. Pro Tip: I also mapped the same image to the Incandescence channel. This was pretty useful, and it actually makes the stars glow so they stay bright even if the scene lighting is dark.
5. Lighting the Scene: Space lighting is harsh and direct. I deleted the default lights and added a single Arnold Directional Light to mimic the sun. I cranked up the intensity until I got those stark, high-contrast shadows that you see in NASA footage.

This was the most critical step of the whole animation. To make something look like it's floating in zero gravity, the movement has to be continuous.

1. Setting the Keyframes: I set my timeline to 240 frames (5 seconds). I keyed the astronaut's starting position at frame 1, then moved to frame 240 and added a slow rotation on all three axes (X, Y, and Z) and a slight backward drift.
2. The Newton's First Law Fix: When I first played it back, the astronaut slowly accelerated and then slowed down at the end. That’s how things move on Earth (friction), but not in space.

Don't you just love physics?

The Graph Editor: To fix this, I opened the Graph Editor, selected my animation curves, and clicked the Linear Tangents icon. This straightened the curves into perfect diagonal lines.

1. Now, the astronaut rotates at a constant, unending speed. It instantly sold the effect of weightlessness because there is no air resistance to slow them down.

Time to turn the geometry into a movie. I used the Arnold Renderer because it handles light bouncing really well.

1. Settings: In the Render Settings, I switched the Image Format to exr for quality and set the "Frame/Animation Ext" to name.#.ext. This tells Maya to render the whole sequence, not just one picture.
2. Quality Control: I bumped the Camera (AA) samples up to 4 to get rid of any noise or grain in the dark areas of the suit.
3. The Render Sequence Trick: Since I'm using the student version, batch rendering can sometimes be tricky. I used Render > Render Sequence instead. This locks up the computer for a while (it took me about 2 hours to render the 10 seconds), so this was the perfect time to go grab a snack and take a nap!

Once the render finally finished, I had a folder full of 240 high-quality images.

I opened up my video editor, imported the first image, and ticked the "Image Sequence" box. The software automatically stitched them together into a smooth video clip. I exported the final result as an MP4, and just like that, my Fusion 360 design was floating in the cosmos.

Lastly, I used Capcut to overlay audio over the animation and added a few glowing effects.

Enjoy watching the final video! :) If you would like to try something like this on your own, I have attached the 3d file of the astronaut I created.

Note: Instructables did not allow me to attach the FBX file, so I have added a STEP file, which you can convert to FBX in Fusion.