Studio Arts Maya 101 Class 6 9/11/2019

Animating a ball bounce

In class I did a demonstration for how to do a ball bounce without squash and stretch.  Here are the steps I took:

1) Grab my ball and set key frames on translate Y for the highest and lowest point of my bounce over the timeline.  I use S to set keyframes.

2) In the graph editor, I can use ctrl-C and ctrl-V to copy and paste keyframes in Translate Y to add more bounces.

3)  In the graph editor I can select the Translate Y keyframes and move them up or down (using the middle mouse button and shift on the keyboard) to change their values.  In this example, I am changing them so that the ball loses height over time, with every bounce.

4)  I use broken and linear tangents on the keyframes where the ball hits the ground, to simulate accelerationg into and out of the floor impact.

5)  Once my up and down animatione feels good, I set keys for the translate and rotation of the ball as it is bouncing.  Usually the beginning of these curves should be linear, so they ball has motion at the beginning, and flat at the end, so it slowly stops translating and rotating.

Rigging with Constraints

I demonstrated a basic concept of rigging, where we use control curves to move poly object.  We set our keyframes on these control curves.   I usually use a parent and scale constrain to connect the control to the object.  I use these constraints, so I can keep Geo and Rig groups separate.  This is good practice for rigging.

Rigging with Joints and IK

After the ball bounce, I showed off some rigging concepts.  I used a joint chain on a leg mesh to show how it deforms the shape by pulling components.  After that I demonstrated how to setup and use an IK Handle.

Rigging a Knee

Norman Character Rig

Lastly, at the end of the class, I showed an example of a character rig and how I pose and animate it.  For class I used the Norman Rig.

A Norman Walk Cycle

and here is a fun video of Norman

animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo.

If you would like to mess with some character acting, go hang out at the 11 Second Club.  There you will find monthly animation competitions, based on the selected audio clip.

At the end of the day, I hope you get from this lesson how animating in Maya would work.  I realize rigging and skinning are very advanced concepts, so I don't expect you guys to be master riggers after this class.  I just want you to know the rigging concepts before you play with a Maya rig.  There are so many free rigs on the internet, it is very easy to grab one and just start animating.  This is what I would suggest for people who are interested in becoming maya animators.