Notes from Class

Star Wars From Puppets To Pixels: Digital Characters In Episode II Docum...

Moving the cycle forwards example ...

This week we will be adding offset and overlap to the horse animation, and moving it forwards along a ground plane. We will also be discussing our ideas for extending the animation.

• Horse going from trot to canter with gait change
• Horse going from trot to walk with gait change
• use reference, analyze it, and interpret as necessary to get a believable performance 

Copy the up and down translation from the COG_CTRL to the hips rearTORSO_CTRL and chest frontTORSO_CTRL. Make sure you past it relative to the value at frame 1. In my case it was -.823. You can save a key for the y tran on frame 1, and type in the value in the stats window in the graph editor.

Now when you paste the curve, it will past it relative to this value, instead of pasting it beginning at the default value of 0.

The chest is carryng the weight of the head and neck, so scale down the amount of up and down translation in the chest, compared to the hips.

Using the graph editor, add overlap to the action. Grab the chest, front feet and leg controllers, head and neck controllers and slide the animation 2 frames later. Grab just the neck and head, and finish offsetting the animation in overlapping waves from the base of the neck to the head.

Now using the compress fetlock controller, add the sense of weight being compressed into the hoof as the weight goes onto each foot.

Add some side movement to the feet. Look at reference closely from the front and back views.

Double check that the feet are moving in equal increments along the ground.

Using the method demonstrated in class, move the horse forwards along a ground plane.

• make sure the feet are moving back in even increments
• move the cycle forwards along a ground plane

Take your trot cycle, and move it forwards. Create a simple render of your animation with the horse trotting forwards, on a ground plane with a shadow to show the foot contact. Add several behaviors to break up the cycle and add spirit to the horse animation.

Examples:

• add a kick
• head tosses
• looking to the left and right
• tail flick

Put the rendered movie file in the drop off folder for the beginning of next week's class. Your animation should be between 80 to 120 frames in length.

Week 6 Module 6: Horse Trot: Testing the Cycle and Extending the Animation

Oct 15 - Oct 21

Lecture/Demo

Offsetting animation and moving the cycle forwards. Turning a treadmill cycle into animation that moves through the scene.

Activity

Students continue working on Horse trot with instructor guidance.

Assignment

Repair any identified issues with your cycle and select how you will extend your assignment. 1. Speeding up to a gallop or slowing to a walk 2. Add a rider. 3. Extend the cycle with non-looping behavior.

Week 5 Horse HOMEWORK - BRING YOUR MAYA FILES NEXT WEEK !!!

WEEK 5 HOMEWORK

• offset and overlap
• Legs lock when they go straight (study reference)
• Shoulders - scapula up and down (study reference)
• compression in the hooves (study reference)
• loosen up the head motion (study reference)
• tail

Week 4 Horse trot - Hierarchical approach to animating a cycle

These next few weeks are designed to help the student create a workflow for animating a cycle. Please follow the workflow given. We will be using a hierarchical approach where the movement is layered starting with the root, rather than a pose to pose approach where the key poses are created for all the nodes of the creature then inbetweened.

Animators will be asked to use reference, analyze it, and interpret as necessary to get a believable performance

The first step is to block out the major movement of the horse trot, starting with the up and down motion of the hips (horse_v2:ct_COG_CTRL). Before you do so, familiarize yourself with the horse trot reference posted above. Understanding the movement and mechanics of the horse trot is crucial. I often like to think as the hips and chest of the horse as two opposing bouncing balls. This helps me lock down the timing in the movement of these two areas. Once you have studied the live action reference, look at the thumbnail and hand-out reference. Keep in mind that this is someone's interpretation of the movement. Nothing replaces studying live action reference. Life is your best teacher. However looking at thumbnails, and someone else's analysis of the movement can help us understand the movement, and see something that we didn't notice was there before.

To Start:

start up maya

Create your maya project file

Copy file horse_v2.mb from student pickup to your work area

File->Project->Set your maya project file

reference the horse maya file

File -> create reference

horse_v2.mb

horse_v2:ct_COG_CTRL

STEP 1 :Get the up and down timing of the root

the keys are 1(down) 5(up) 9(down) 13(up)

On the other keys 3 7 11 15 the body is 1/3 closer to top keys 5 and 13

To slow down the cycle to 18 frames instead of 16, add 2 drawings

between 4 and 5 (up) and 12 and 13 (up)

new keys 1 (down) 6 (up) 10 (down) 15 (up)

and 19 is the same frame as 1

STEP 2 :Rough out the gestures for the feet placement, passing position and contact. Do the back legs first. These will be copied to the front legs.

TIPS : The springiness in the steps is from the ligaments in the foot of the horse.

Check the arcs and spacing of the joints on the foot and leg of the horse as the legs fold and stretch. Plot the arcs using a draw tool on the computer.

This illustration is from the Preston Blair book, showing how the legs fold up and stretch out with the body.

Homework: Block in the up and down movement of the body using the COG (root) node. Now rough in the movement of the legs under the body using the feet controllers. Use the circular controllers at the top of the leg, frontLeg_CTRL and rearLegCTRL to make the leg stretch and compress as it folds up and stretches out. TIP: If you have problems with the model using maya 11, then use an older version of maya. I suggest maya 10.0. Follow the reference, thumbnails, and illustrations given.

3D Animation Masterclass: Hierarchical approach to Lip Sync by Kyle Balda

This tutorial shows a hierarchical approach where the movement is layered starting with the root, rather than a pose to pose approach, for animating a 2 character dialogue scene. 

James Baxter Animation Reel