Week 1 –Introduction to 3D Animation, the bouncing ball:

What was covered in the lecture:
– Overview of the assignments
– Maya animation overview
Animation Principles:

The Workshop Activity:
1. Bouncing Ball Task:
s = set key
Adjust the location of the balls and set a key hitting S. Every time a key was set there will be a red indication next to the parameters and on the timeline.

On this exercise I moved the pivot point to the bottom of the shape (D to adjust and V to snip), Changed the “Translate Y” and “Scale Y” parameters.

2. Ball Bounce Arc:

3. Pendulum
To adjust the handles I right clicked and chose non-weight

4. Bouncy Ball

The Weekly Activity:
A ball hitting a wall:

Render (too much motion blur):

Domino Reference:

Week 2 – The Obstacle Course

What was covered in the lecture:
Rigging:
– The big yellow circle surrounding the entire rig is the placement for the first key.
– Start by setting a key for each of the RIG parts.
– Setting to auto keying might be easier.
– Always use the animation graph.
– To visualise the path:

– Shift+Drag to move a keyframe. We could also cut and paste.
Its important to turn on Auto Snap Keys

The Workshop Activity:
Bouncing Ball

The Weekly Activity:
Bouncing Cube:

Obstacle Course Layout:

Week 3 – Posing an IK Arm and Leg Rig, Disney ‘Sack of flour’ animator training

What was covered in the lecture:
How to parent
P to parent. shift+P to break the link

How to limit transformation
Go to Att Editor -> limit info -> Rotate/Translate

The Workshop Activity:
Hand Posing:
I arranged the pivot points to where the joints should be. Parented from bottom (finger tip) to top (shoulder). I limited the transformation of each joint.

Leg Rigging Posing:
Adjust the pivot points. Then parent each part from bottom to top (feet to pelvis).

Create Joints. Create to one side of the leg. Place it correctly. Mirror Joints. Then add 2 joints for the pelvis and link them to both legs.

Create IK Handle. Select the hip joint and the leg joint. Create one more IK handle and select the leg joint then the feet joint. Do the same the other leg.

Create a circle curve, select first the feet IK then the circle and parent. Do the same with the other IK of this leg. Then do the same for the other leg.

Create one more circle curve for the pelvis. parent it to the top joint.

Parent each geometry to its bone. First select the geo then the bone + P.

Week 4 – Creating Poses and Working on Human Rig.

What was covered in the lecture:
Dynamic Posing
A dynamically posed drawing will portray a body in motion: leaping, dancing, running. An important thing is to have an interesting silhouette. The silhouette should be clear and readable.

– We need to take into consideration the line of action – which gives a sense of energy to the rig

– Asymmetry – Asymmetrical poses are more natural and dynamic, conveying a sense of movement and life
– Exaggerate the Pose – It help emphasise the character’s actions and emotions, making the pose more impactful
– Weight is distributed – Think about how gravity affects the character’s body and adjust the pose accordingly.

Examples of drawings that I made in the past while taking into consideration the principles above:

The Workshop Activity:
Flour-sack
A dynamically posed drawing will portray a body in motion: leaping, dancing, running. An important thing is to have an interesting silhouette. The silhouette should be clear and readable.
First we investigated the model sheet and expression:

Then we created our own poses:
Casual –

Aware of the environment:

Looks Back –

Eleven Rig:
To change how the arms behaves when moving the pelvis control, select the main control and adjust “R/L Arm Ik Space”. We could also change the gender of the character on the same location.

We can animate everything. For example:
– Fingers posture
– Blink by selecting the eyeball
– Mouth and tongue

Reference of a sketch I made showcasing “Exaggerate the Pose” and “Weight is distributed” principles:

For this exercise I tried to replicate “Water bending” postures:

Week 5 – Poses continued, Character head turn and walk

What was covered in the lecture:
Principle of walking cycle:
A walk cycle is a fundamental animation sequence that shows a character walking in a loop. It’s one of the most important animation principles because it helps bring characters to life in a believable way.

Key Stages of a Walk Cycle
A typical walk cycle consists of four main poses that define the motion: Contact, Down, pass and up.

Contact Pose
– The leading foot touches the ground while the back foot is about to lift off
– Arms are in their widest swinging position
Down Pose
– The leading foot takes the character’s weight, bending the knee
-The character is at its lowest position
– The arms begin to swing in the opposite direction
Passing Pose
– The back foot swings forward and passes the grounded foot
– The character’s weight shifts from one foot to the other
– The body returns to a neutral height
Up Pose
– The character reaches its highest point as the heel lifts off the ground
– The knee is slightly bent as the leg prepares for the next contact
– The arms continue their swing

Key Principles for a Realistic Walk Cycle
– Timing & Spacing – A normal human walk takes about 12 to 16 frames per step, making a full cycle around 24 to 32 frames for a smooth loop

– Weight Shift – The character’s weight must transfer naturally from one foot to another to avoid a “floating” look
– Arcs & Overlapping Action – The head, arms, and torso should follow natural arcs, and overlapping actions like delayed arm swings add realism.
– Secondary Motion – Small details like head bobbing, subtle chest movement, or clothing follow-through make the walk more natural
To sum up:
1 – contact
4 – down
7 – pass
10 – up
13 – contact

References of stylised walk:
100 ways to walk – link
Bio Motion Lab Simulation – link

The Workshop Activity:
Head Turn
Frames 1, 10 and 20.
1. Animate the head moving from side to side using the head control
2. Move the hands down using the wrist IK control
3. Animate the hips going up and down using the body control
4. Animate the back bends. I used the top two.

5. Animate his eyes moving in the same direction using “h_eye_all” control

6. Animate a blink using “r/l eye socket” control

Leg Movement:
Move the knees controls a bit forward. Then go to the global control and change “R/L Knee Ik Space” from “Global” to “Ankle”

For the hands: “R/L Arm Ik Space” = chest

A walking cycle will be 20 frames while the contact will be on frames 1,10 and 20.
On frame 1:
1. Move the hips a bit down
2. Move one leg backwards and one forward

On frame 10:
3. move the hips so the legs will like like that

4. Move the left leg forward

5. Key the leg that isn’t moving as well.

6. Repeat on frame 20
On frames 5 and 15:
7. Lift the legs up
8.move the hips a bit forward

Weight Shift:
9. On frames 5 and 15: move the hips a bit up.
10. On frames 1, 10 and 20: Move the hips a bit down
11. When the weight is on one leg we rotate the hip control to the same side. We can also move the hips a bit to the same direction

Hands:
12.Animate the hands location and rotation using L/R Wrist IK control
13. Animate the hands and fingers so they will look natural using the hand control and adjusting the parameters.
14. Adjust the elbows if you wish

Feet:
For the feet the main controls we will use are Toe Lift and Rotate under “L/R ankle IK control”
15. On frame 3, change the toe lift to 30
On frame 5, change the toe lift to 60
On frame 8 change the toe lift is 0

16. Keep adjusting the feet lifting

The Weekly Activity:
Add animation layers and head movement:

Start thinking of ideas to the 3rd assessment:
Aang Rig – Dragon Dance:

Azula:

Week 6 – Walk Cycle

The Workshop Activity:
Walking in :
1. Legs:
First slide the legs on the floor on frames 1, 10 and 20.
2. Hips:
Rotate the hips from side to side. When rotate toward the direction the front leg is.

3. Passing pose
On frames 5 and 15, lift the hips a bit. Lift each leg up and rotate a bit.

4. Keeping the back leg on the floor for a bit longer:
On frames 3 and 12, make sure the back leg is still on the floor

4. Anticipation Before Landing on the Front Leg
On frames 7 and 18, rotate the leg the other way.

5. Rotate the hips so the character will lean a bit forward
6.The opposite shollder from the leaning leg should rotate to the same direction.
7. Move the hands a bit from side to side and relax the fingers

8. On the passing point (frames 5 and 15), the hips bit moving to the direction of the leading leg and the torso rotates to the other way to balance the body.
I exaggerated on the screenshot so it will be easier to understad

Walk in Space Final:

Walking Cycle :
Cycle:
Select one of the rig controls that we animated. Open the graph editor and under view, turn on infinity. Then Curves -> Post infinity -> Cycle

For Aang rig, for IK control we could do cycle but for FK control we have to do Oscillate

Locators:
Create -> Locator
Animation manu, Constrains -> Aim

The Weekly Activity:
Walking:
Finish a walking cycle:

Develop your Third assessment:
The Idea:

Poses:

Week 7 – Weight Lift

What Was Covered in Class:
Weight lift principles:

The Workshop Activity:
Parent constrains and weight lift:
Put the character in a lifting position and create a box

Create 4 locators. Parent the ones on the side to the hand control. the one at the front to the box, and everything to the one in the middle.

Animate the different poses:

Final Render

The Weekly Activity:
Ball:
Parent the hand control to the ball (first select the hand control). DO NOT parent it the regular way. Go to Constrain -> Parent

Weight Lift:

Keep Working on the 3rd assessment:

Shot planning:
– 0-55 – azula face closeup
– 56-100 – aang face closeup
– 101-155 – aang + azula + pipe
– 156-195 – azula shooting fire
– 196-234 – aang and azula – from aang side
– 235-309 – azula (jump + water)
– 310 – 340 – aang water bend
– 341-405 – azula avoids water
– 406-429 – aang lands into his pose
– 430-510 – azula runas and jumps

What I have so far:

What I have left to do:
– Fix Azula’s clothes
– Aang + azula camera
– Aang camera
– Aang face expression
– Aang clothes
– Texture the environment
– Render
– Comp?

Week 8 – Rotoscop Animation + BallKick

What was covered in the lecture:
Rotoscoping is a classic animation technique where animators trace over real footage to capture natural movement. This technique was used in Snow White and also in modern VFX.
Muybridge’s motion studies: helps to nail weight, timing, and realistic motion for actions like lifting, kicking, or creature animation.
Import an image sequences in Maya to match character poses, making animation feel more lifelike.

The Workshop Activity:
Import an image sequence into Maya:

Start animating:

The Weekly Activity:
Finish The Ball Kick Exercise:

Keep working on your 3rd assessment:
I finished with the assessment, I just need to add more explanations to the assessment section.

Week 9 – weeks 1-8 overview

What was covered in the lecture:
This week we had the opportunity to catch up with our work.
So I rendered the weight lift again.
Also, I have changed the final comp of my third assessment. I mainly adjusted the wall behind the male character and added smoke.

Week 10 – Lipsing

What was covered in the lecture:
Lip sync animation is the process of making a character’s mouth move in sync with spoken words so it looks like they’re really talking.
The main idea is to break down the audio into smaller sounds called phonemes, and matching those to specific mouth shapes, known as visemes.
These visemes are the visual version of sounds, like how the mouth looks when saying “M” or “O”.
In animation, we usually use a standard set of shapes for common sounds, and adjust the timing to match the dialogue. The key is to block out the main mouth positions first, then add in-betweens and facial expressions to make it feel smooth and believable.
Preston Blair phoneme series

Use asymmetry:
Remember to add some asymmetry into your facial poses! The images here are devoid of emotion and personality so as to show each phoneme clearly. This is a bad thing for a real dialogue performance, so make sure you liven up your characters with asymmetrical expressions – just think of the gag with the little green aliens in Toy Story when the all go “Ooooooooo…”

The Workshop Activity:
Create a LipSync Animation:
Studio Library Plugin: Link
– I used the Studio Library Plugin to make it easier for me to repeat the same lip expression.
– To install the plugin, just drag it to Maya Viewport and it will appear under the custom shelf.

– Then drag all the existing face expression into the plugin window or the plugin file on your machine.
– You can always create new expressions.

Create Quick Select Set:
To make it easier choosing all the face controllers every time, I created a quick select set and added it to the costume shelf.
– Select all the controllers of the face and: Create -> Sets -> Quick Select Set

Create the animation:
Audio Reference: Link
Always make sure the face set it selected. Every time you animate a new lip expression hit S, do not rely on the auto key as it just key the parameters that were changed.

Final Result So Far:

Assessments:
1st Assessment: Artefact: Animation Principles showreel
Part 1: Bouncing Ball animation
Part 2: Obstacle Course animation (include the following): ramp, springboard, half-pipe, rotating component
1st Assessment Showreel:

Part 2 – Obstacle Course (another version – not rendered):

2nd Assessment: Artefact – Character Animation (poses, weight and anticipation)
Part 1:
– 3 Poses of the Flour Sack
– 3 Poses of character action
Part 2:
– Character walk forward
Part 3:
– Character walk cycle using the post-infinity cycle curve
Part 4:
– Lifting a large box
– Lifting a heavy weight
– Bouncing a ball
Part 5:
– ‘Kick’ roto/reference

2nd Assessment Showreel (including all the above):

Extra: Head Turn:

Part 5: ‘Kick’ roto/reference: Playlblast with the reference:

3rd Assessment: 11 Second Club Competition (Character Animation Interaction)
For this project, I animated a scene from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, recreating Aang and Azula’s battle near the wall of Ba Sing Se (Season 2, Episode 8 – “The Chase”).
I used Azula’s rig by Mattathias https://mattathias.gumroad.com/l/azularig
and Aang’s rig by Mia Pray and Rijah Kazuo https://agora.community/assets?category=assets&resource=aang
Besides the character movements, I animated facial expressions, hair, and clothing animation. I also animated the camera movements.

The reference scene: