Category: Maya

In this time, fixing the animation is very hard than I expected. I need to adjust the timing and the angle of left and right hand post( make sure their difference) , spine angle and arms and so on.

This week, I focused on smoothing out the hip’s bouncing curve and making the hand gestures look more natural.
I also had to decide which of the two animation versions from the past two weeks. Even though every animation when I doing that I could find new problems, the biggest challenge this time was animating the speed and angle of the poses until they felt right.

Finally, while adjusting the head movement, I noticed something: Before jumping, a person usually looks ahead to judge the distance and direction. At the highest point of the jump, they tend to look down toward the ground, and when it landing, the head drops slightly again because of physics.

Here is the final animation demonstration:

In this week we still need to polish our animation in Maya, I keep doing the jump forward. I consideration about this animation is to do it look like realistic or make if more animation, which one is better. Will, after I search on the < animation survival kit> I think, do the animation is aim to understand why the post is in here, why we should fix that.

In my understanding I think we should not think to much, just do it and make it looks like better, that is the aim in this term for me(maybe) then I asked Ting for help in the class on Friday, I got some useful feedback and some tips.

Tips in my understanding be like: when the character jumps, the hip motion and speed should be like a bouncing ball ( Slow with many frame—Fast with key frame—Slow the same when it land)

when I back to my home, I start look at old animation like “Tom and Jerry “and “Mickey Mouse”, trying to be inspired. To focus on how master do their animation post and principle in their character.

Animation issue

In the class, I show my maya problem with George, he give me some advice that do the post making more animation, like hand post when character prepare to land, and the feet angle, ect. Then I also ask ting for help in Friday’s class after I adjust my animation but still quite confuse. Ting also give me lots of feedback, I think those are helpful and inspire me to do the next.

Technical issue

Sometimes the knee keyframes would overflip on their own, and the whole leg would bend backward. At first, I didn’t know why it was happening. Then I noticed there’s a controller for the knee, but I never even touched it, and it still flipped. My teacher explained that it’s because the knee was following a different part of the body, so it got confused.
So for some parts, you have to try fixing it, whether it follows the Main controller or the Hips.

Later, I felt like Maya can be a bit crzy sometimes, but honestly, it doesn’t matter how you fix it. What matters is that after you fix it, the animation looks the aniamte it should.

Animation point

I can get feedback from different teachers, each with their own perspective， and that helps my animation work a lot.

Ting told me the hip should be like an bouncing ball, and also when it jumps, the shape should be like a big curve! during this jump process, animation timing should be like ball’s timing, she noticed that my animation is not enough for timing, maybe it is too quick to key enough, and should add more frames in animation. especially the earlier part before jumping up.

Also George’s feedback is different, he told me the post should not complete following the reference, it should be add more animater ideas. like golden post which is difference with reality.

This week, we should finish the body mechanics means, completing blocking into the hole polishing. And this time, I met lots of problems in Maya.

Technical issues

This time is completely made by myself. While making the whole animation, I kept running into some technical problems in Maya that really slowed me down. For example, when I moved the body, sometimes the hands and feet wouldn’t follow and they just stayed in place, so it would look like an alien. So I had to go frame by frame to reposition them, then to adjust the pose. It was pretty annoying, and sometimes I wondered if I was doing things in a way that created extra work for myself.

And that’s not all, when I tried to go back and change a pose or position in an earlier frame, adjusting it would mess up all the following frames too！ Then I’d have to fix every single frame again. It was frustrating, but I still had to sit there and fix them one by one.

I ask teacher for help. My teacher mentioned that I might have accidentally animated using the waist controller next to it instead of the big circle in the center controller, maybe just I did not realize I was doing it, which is why the rig ended up looking so odd.

So she had me delete the keyed parts and remake the adjustments, and honestly, it worked much better after that. Teachers really are strong in technology, they always point what’s wrong in the end.

For George’s homework:

In this week, polish our walking cycle is the point of aim. Last week I learned how to adjust the blocking rate, this week I know there are some framesthat need to be added in Maya project,( But it still not clearly to know correctly).

This week, we did a walking animation used walking rig and fix it. At the beginning I misunderstanding about the homework, actually we need to do the blocking presentation. But I do the hole animation not the blocking, and need to adjust the project to blocking.

In the first animation, some thing didn’t correct enough, like when the right feet some frame will like “Michael Jackson”, floting at the animation. That is the problem I need to fix.

The process is: open the graph editor in maya. and check the transtate “x” to make sure it keep in the “spline tengents” mode, keep step in the same flat! (show like feedback’s red line)

For Ting’s homework:

Here is hand post reference: shooting by myself.

Feeling: when I editing the Maya project, something was confuse like the rotate well with the Metacarpals and First Metacarpals. So I look famliliar with the hand layout.

These are my project:

Week 8 we have a rare chance to know how animation industry working. Personal speaking it is very helpful to let you know what kind of work you want to join, and what kind of area you want to put into and dive into it. For me, I think the most important thing is not find the path to go, instead of learning the 3D founfermental is very important and crutial which means when you are powerful in yourself skill, you can have more choices.( just my personal thinking)

In this week, we need to planning the next 4 week’s animation, to be honest, I am just from new in Maya step to famillier with Maya, So I pick the simple sport but this motion has lots of important principle and animation tips, it looks like simple but if you want to make it excellent, you need to put a lot of effort into it:

JUMP FORWARD

I think hand post is also important, because it shows how power shift from back to forward.

WEEK6 we need to learning how to planing walking cycle and Knowing the point is walking movement should keep the hip and the weight balance is important. and familiar with what is happening with the hips in relation to the legs.

so do the planning first including timing and then making the animation. I leaned the weight is change when it up leg or land leg, and keep the balance when it move the hip.

Actually, I am a little bit mis understanding the knee and the weight change, but I follow the animation bible( animation kit) it say when the moving animation start the rig should keep moving, because that is the weight shift which should not be stopped by animater making.

Blocking animation!

After planning, I started doing animation in my Maya project. since the several weeks study, I’m quite good knowing the Maya things that when I need to find the tool to help my animation, i can find very fast, thanks for tutor and classmate’s help.

I totally misunderstood “Blocking”, I thought this is just making the every key frame so call blocking, and I just do key frames in Maya. When I output this project, it just shows the fully animation not blocking. Untill tutor George told us, that is not blocking! we should find the tool in Maya and use the tool to change the animation rate into a flat in every frame!!

For George’s homework weight shift/walk

In this week, we need to use a ball with 2 2-leg rig to show the physics and body moving side by side. When I do the animation, I found that the angle always overrotates until I adjust my action.

When I did the planning, I realized the frame is important, because to be an animator, I never think about the timing and will make the animation “confusing”. The frame should depend on the action speed and others.

The Understanding and Personal Feeling

In the 12 Principles of Animation, anticipation should be more in this moving animation. When the right foot is first time to move up, the body should follow the Principle in this term: K.I.S.S ( KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID) is means to do the simple thing to the highest quality and highest understanding, so that no squash and stretch would be better and natural.

When the weight shift to the middle position, the gravity is in the middle, so no routate and no side， just in symmetrical. Then, next move to the other side ( right feet keep, left feet up and straight), which looks like a triangle and stable. after that animation switch the gavitay and weigh to the right feet, so the body machanic would be in the right side, and show more anticipation.

After this week’s homework, I understand that the important things in this homework is to focus on the hip and legs of the weight shift(or walk), and the variation in speed between poses or frames.

For Ting’s Post to Post animation

First version:

In this post to post animation, the first version can see lots of problem, When I first made this animation, I didn’t use any video reference, I just based it on how my own body moves and what I imagined. Because of that, the timing and the way the feet float looked really unnatural and uncoordinated.

To be honest, while making this first version, I felt really stuck. I didn’t know where to start or how to adjust things—I was just moving controls mechanically, imagining it in my head. That wasn’t a good way to work.

Then I sent it to my friend Chichi for help. She told me the feet looked so weird, like “one foot was stepping while the other was doing a Michael Jackson move.” So I focused on fixing the feet.

Second version:

It looks much better now, but I still feel like something’s weird，I don’t even know how to fix it or why it feels strange.

This is the first time I feel like: I have no idea. My friend couldn’t spot it either, so now I’ll just have to wait for Ting’s feedback.

For George’s homework

In this week of funfermental, I focus more time to fix tail animation and tail’s curve and shape. Definitely I can use my understanding without the tutorial video to fix animation this week.

But when the animation almost finished, the end of the tail still made me confuse. In george’s feedback, end of the tail should be like: straight to “S” curve then to “C” curve. It quite hard to understand even I already had feedback. then I check the <animation survival kit>, I learned how to use “Follow through” in animation.

In my understanding about the end of tail part

I try to understand with the curve how it just happened in this part like: When it land, tail keep the straight shape follow the ball( like P1), and after main body land and release the centre of gravity（like P2), the connect part lands too, but the tip of the tailis still moving, which will follow “the connect tail part” to land (like P3).

For Ting’s homework

This week we use the Franky model the big guy has more strong muscle,s so some time muscles will be rotated and this seems like quite exaggerate and looks like a little bit odd. So that I start to find the problem.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been getting more comfortable with blocking key poses in Maya. But some parts of the body control still confuse me a lot. Taking this bouncing ball pose, for example, the knee actually can’t move or bend on itself. So I have to adjust the controller with foot, even rotate the foot, just to make the knee bend slightly forward and downward.

Some time hand shape is also hard to adjust, expecially the curve. Hand post is necessary to make the hole model looks more like a golden post. So the curve is important, but I still need spend lot of time adjusting then, including finger angle, palmar orientation, every part are connect means when I adjust a part of finger, the other part will be moved, (After few weeks I realized that things is depend on which control rig is followed by the other).