Animating a character rig:
Recently we were given a task to animate a character rig given to us, we had to perform 3 different animations on this rig: walk, run and jump. Since this is just a test for animation, we aren't expected to model the character, texture it or light the environment.
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| Above: "Moom", our character. |
At first it seemed like an easy task to do, how ever, I began to notice that it wasn't as simple as moving a leg or arm and setting a keyframe. The animation had to look believable, and I faced many problems with the rig's movement being very robotic. To aid this problem, I went through as many key frames as possible to tweak the movement that made the animation look robotic.
After this problem, I decided to go home and research animation cycle storyboards and video clips, so I could get an idea in my head on what sort of positions the body would move in. This proved incredibly helpful as I animated the same positions on the character rig.
I am also facing a problem with rendering using the playblast feature because no movie codecs are appearing. I have tried to search this problem online, yet have had no luck in finding an answer, so I might have to ask Mark in the future how to fix this problem (incase we have to submit the clips at a later date.)
Animating a bouncing ball in Maya
After a couple of inductions on animating in Maya, we have been given a task to animate a ball that is bouncing on the floor.
Having not taken too much interest in animation in Maya before, the inductions proved very handy and taught me a lot in combination with animation fundamentals, such as the 12 principles of animation.
At first, the graph editor looked complicated, and to be frank, I still have to trouble in approaching the XYZ axis' and where they fit with the virtual space in the view ports, but hopefully that will come with experience in using the graph.
We have learnt that in order to make the ball animation look as realistic as possible, we have to incorporate principles such as 'squash and stretch' into the animation, thus adding volume and good flow to the clip.
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| Above: A screenshot of my bouncing ball animation. |
Tomorrow we have a group critique, so it shall be interesting to watch other students' animations and learn how I can make my animations better through others' comments.
An introduction to Maya (sort of!)
Recently, we have been having a few inductions on how to use 3-D modeling, texturing, rendering software 'AutoDesk Maya', which have proved incredibly handy for many members of the class who have not used this program before.
I have used this software before, so the inductions only reinforced methods that I am already used to, how ever it was comforting to know that the tutors use the same work methods as I do (thus far.) Despite this, I will continue to attend the sessions as the topics covered within them will prove incredibly handy for note-taking and learning more complex methods on how to animate and model - a skill I would love to learn more about.
I have decided to create a separate page on this blog named 'modeling references' as I tend to search into modeling methods quite often, but never seem to save any photos on topology, edge flow, etc, so I have decided this page could come in quite handy in the future.
http://capleass.blogspot.com/p/modelling.html
