Class 3 09/17/2015

Posing the character rig

Some Morpheus Notes:

 In the video above, you can see FK on the left, and IK on the right.  This is the difference between FK and IK.  FK you need to rotate Shoulder, Elbow, and Wrist to position the arm.  IK you only need to translate the wrist control, and position the pole vector. 

To switch between FK and IK, find this control near the hand.  0 is FK and 1 means IK.

There are similar controls for the foot for switching FK/IK, but honestly, 95 percent of the time you will not animate the foot/leg with FK.  Best to keep it IK.

And just so you know, the spine has FK/IK controls as well.  Another way of telling the difference, is that in Morpheus, FK controls are only rotated, while most IK controls can be rotated AND translated.  Some more advanced and flexible rigs allows you to translate, rotate and scale FK or IK, but Morpheus will not.  Here is a video demonstrating the difference.

The control name usually indicate whether it is an FK or IK control.  If you don't know how to find the name of the control, I have shown you 3 places in maya that tell you, once you have it selected.

To reiterate, here is a Morpheus demo video to help you get more familiar with the rig.

Morpheus Rig 101 - "The Rig As Is" from Josh Burton on Vimeo.



HOMEWORK
Watch this video.  

Please sketch out these timed poses.  They do not have to be masterpieces.  I want you to get into the habit of good observation.  The more you practice drawings, the more knowledgeable you will be about strong posing, and in the end you will be able to make your characters more readable, more believable, and most importantly, alive!  

If you need help with gestural drawing you can watch some educational clips on youtube.  Search them out, or watch one that I just pulled up:

You may draw with a wacom, cintique, or with a sketchbook.  Please present these drawings in the next class.  I hope you guys will get a lot of pleasure out of this.  It can be a very relaxing exercise!

In addition to the drawings, I would like you guys to pick 5 of the poses from the video, and pose your character out.  You can do 5 frames of animation, with each frame as a pose.  I will be emailing an example file for you to follow.  I only did 3 poses, but you will get the idea.  Please also think about where your camera is in relation to the character.  Just like our ball bounce.  Does the camera help us read the pose clearly?

Please output your poses into a quicktime, and email them to me before next class.

Please ask me if you have any questions!