13/02/25 week 1

In the first weeks lesson we used keying to create changes in the balls appearances in the scene. Stretching and moving the balls about to give off a look that the balls are in natural movement. Pressing ‘S’ on the workspace would create a marker allowing for the selected object to stretch and move in to the position that you’ve left it in.

There were different exercise for the class to do, in order for us to understand simple animation concept such as stretching balls when they’re in motion.

challenge 1

The first challenge was to get different balls to move in a realistic way. So we had to think how a tennis ball might react when being dropped compared to a bowling ball which is much heavier. We did this while also applying the stretch motion on the balls.

Challenge 2

Second challenge involved me trying to replicate the movement and stretch of the far right ball which came with the scene.

Understanding the stretch theory in animation is important and this was a great task to put the idea to the test. The idea is that when the ball hits the ground with motion it widens while when in mid air and gaining speed it thins.

challenge 3

The idea for challenge 3 is to recreate the movement of a clock. Instead of just using key frames for the movement I used the graph editor to change the momentum of the hand when coming up. For it to look as natural as possible the hand needs to slow down when coming up and slowly gain back momentum when coming back down, almost like a swing.

challenge 4

copy the movements of the original ball. There are two balls in the scene. One has already got movement and the other has no motion keyframes. The idea is to copy the movement using the graphs window.

6th challenge

week 2

week 3

This week we rigged are own limbs in Maya from scratch. The process involved us creating things like and arm and a hand and proceeding to parent the limbs as well as giving them rigged movements in the mesh.

week 4

Joy

Laughing

Sad

The rig below of the person is the model the class will be using for the final assessment. Todays lesson is getting familiar with the rig.

We copied movements just to understand the limits of the rig.

rigging lamp

The render of the video is still not finished, The lamp jump needs some fixes. The jump doesn’t look convincing yet. When in mid air the lamp looks a bit awkward coming back down to the ground.

week 5

Week 5 we used the same rig as week 4. Since we will be using the same model for the final assessment. This lesson we made the character move his head and also walk. This was a great exercise since it showed how many customisations there were on the rig.

The walk was harder than it looks. Capturing a natural walk with keying was quite difficult. Moving all the joints correctly without breaking the rig and matching the little movement such as the hip moving side to side with the legs. Also moving the toes when the feet lift off. All these little movements that help make the walk look natural play a big role in the final outcome.

Another example of these simple small movements is the hands/fingers. When walking the hands change shape. When the hand goes back the palm is flat when the hand comes forward the hand closes.

I found this exercise to be very helpful in understanding the rig. There is a lot of settings on each of the body parts so it was great to use these settings on the hands, face and feet.

re-do of bouncing ball

week 6 walk loop

The thing to make sure of when making an infinite walk is to make the first and last frames of the walk in the exact same position.

In this walk I use frames 1 – 20, so the first and final frame are in the exact same position.

The second thing to note is that the first frame is already getting ready for motion,

My character already has his back heel off the floor as if he is taking his next step. This helps make the walk look more real. The last frame has the same stance since it’s the same as the first frame.

The other foot has the same movement with the toes and heel. It’s a simple little movement that adds to the life of the walk.

The rig needs to have the opposite hand motions to the legs. left leg goes forward so does the right arm.

The body/waist must rotate with the leg going forward, creating a slight wiggle when walking.

When one leg is down I increase the hight of the character a little bit since the leg on the ground is straight. I did a little bit of movement in the hands to create a more realistic look.