BFA 3D Animation Class 7 10/18/2017

Hello everyone.  Today we looked at how to create a walk cycle.

Topics covered in class:

-Creating a RenderCam
In one of your viewports you can create a new persp cam and rename it to RenderCam.  Use this as the camera that you playblast from, while you use the default persp as your work camera.

-Animating a walk cycle in place.

-Posing key poses for walk cycle using the animators survival guide as reference.
 Adding break down poses in between the key poses.
Spacing the key frames of the poses so that the timing works right.

-Mechanics
 Feet alternate opposite the arms. Example is when right foot is forward, left foot is back
 Hips and shoulders have opposing rotations.
 Torso moves up and down.
 When animating feet, use heel and ball roll channels to move foot on appropriate pivots.
 Animate torso, chest and head to feel the weight of the body moving up and down.

-Setting timeline so that your last frame isn't rendered when playblasting.  The last and first frame will be the same and you dont want that frame playing twice when you are looping.

-Cycling Animation in Graph Editor.
Have infinity turned on to preview the curve.

-Tweening and mirroring in aTools

Atools for maya at home (click to save)

Tutorial Video on aTools:

Walk cycle images:

This man here is an inspiration.  This person was not an animator before, but he decided he wanted to try it.  Everyday for 100 days, he tried to animate a walk cycle.  You can see him getting better and better with each try.

Youtube Channel with Film Reference for Animators.

Other Walk Cycles:

Other Tutorials:

Felix Sputnick's animation videos, which are very insightful

Eadweard Muybridge, the photographer who studied motion.

Homework!

Please put together a first pass of your walk cycles.  Don't forget to use aTools to save time. Use the images provided if you need references for which poses you would like to have in your walk cycle.  Please work on your poses and timing until you feel like they look like good walk cycles.  For assistance please use the material I have provided.  It is useful to see how other people work on walk cycles.  Perhaps their method is better for you than what I showed!

For next class I would like to see a quicktime of your walk cycles and your references if you have them.  Please playblast them and email them to me before class begins.  We will then take those and I will show you how to take them a step further and refine them.

If you need help or advice, please send me an email!

BFA 3D Animation Class 6 10/12/2017

Topics covered in the last class.

I opened up the Bonnie rig file so I could re-connect the texture paths.  

-Open Hypershade, and click the file tab

-select the first file and correct the file path so it points to the file inside the sourceimages folder that came with the rig.

-for the next few textures, you can just click once on the sample thumbnail at the top of the file attribute editor.  Maya will figure out the real path for everything else with each click.

Because the hair use .PSD files and transparencies, it cause some issues with the display in viewport 2.0.  Instead I made a new Lambert Shader and applied it to the hair.  I have done this to the rig and have emailed this new version to you.

Once the file textures are reconnected, save the file.

When I was ready to pose, I created a new file, and referenced the Bonnie rig.

I then went through how the rig works

-COG control is near the hips and is used to move the body around.

-IK/FK Arms and legs.  Use IK if you want the arm or leg to stick somewhere.  Use FK for more direct control of the rotations.

-For this exercise, leave the feet on IK and leave the arms on FK.

-Pole Vector objects are used to point the elbows or knees while in IK.  Usually I set it's parent space to the IK ctrl.  That means if you move the foot, the pole vector will follow it.

-The shoulders and head have this option for align.  By default it is set to 1, which means "on".  When align is on, it maintains it's rotational position as you move the body around.

-Ribbon controls for arms and legs help you define more curvy shapes.

-For the eye control, I like to have it parented to the head, so when I move the character around, I don't have to worry about losing it, or having the eyes roll back into the head.

I showed you how I would like you to key each pose on different frames.

If you have trouble with any of these topics just google search them or ask me for clarification.

Homework:

Take your drawings that you did at the beginning of the semester, and create poses with the Bonnie rig.  I want to see 10 poses total.

Playblast these 10 frames into a quicktime and send them to me before class next week.

One thing I forgot to mention last class is to pay attention to how you pose to your camera.  When you playblast make sure your pose is at the best angle to the camera.  If you need to rotate your character for one frame, use the root, and key it.  Posing the face is optional.