Character Animation DEVLOG 4 (Mar 10 - Mar 23)
- smcconnell224
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Walk Cycles
One thing we learned this week was walk cycles and I really love animating them. I like being able to use bundle snapshot and mirror pose to make the poses come together. I like that it comes together easily with a contact pose, up pose, and down pose. It makes a lot of sense in my brain and I find it easy to put together and to change in the graph editor.
This was the first walk cycle I made, this was made in class and the rig we used was to help us focus on the movement and poses of the legs. I really pushed the arcs on this one because I wanted it to look like this box was strutting its stuff. I think I achieved that.
Part of the homework was watching videos about making a referenced walk cycle. I didn't realize it was just watching the videos, so I accidentally ended up making a walk cycle for this as well. I don't consider it my final one, as I have a different one I started working on that I like better. Here is that accidental walk cycle I created anyway;
I think it looks a bit awkward but I like it. It was tricky to mirror the legs and part of the upper body. I should have switched that hand on his back to IK so that it doesn't slide around and I need to keep that in mind when I need the hand planted somewhere.
I also used this Rhino rig for my run cycle animation. It was fun to make because he's so big and bulky, and that needed to be communicated in how he moved. I wonder how I would choose to animate a much more lithe character running in comparison.
I also used this rig for the idle animation. The reason why was that other rigs I wanted to use had weird rotation in the arms when I tried using bundle snapshot and mirror pose. I didn't figure out how to fix that until later on.
Finger Tap
This one is an interesting one because reference was used and I think it for the most part works, there are still subtleties in the movements I don't like. For hand movement though, I think it looks nice. I think maybe the contact pose is bothering me.
I used locators in this animation to help make the fingers look more planted and they are a lifesaver, will be using them in the future. One thing I need to get in the habit of is using the tools at my disposal to make the hands and fingers look planted when they need to not slide or shift around. I also used temp controllers to move the pivot point to the wrist to make the movement look better.
Recontextualized Audio
For this exercise, we had to take audio and use it in a scene. We did have to change the context of it. For mine, I chose a cafe scene. This was fun because I got to get into Maya modeling again. This is a blockout, and I think I'd like to spline it. I turned on the facial rigs and worked with those a little bit, but I still don't know how to lip sync. I think if I passed over this again, I'd add more shoulder movements to the second character speaking.
Next Steps
I have been feeling more confident in my animations and I have been working on the parts I don't like as much. I've been learning about using more tools like temp controller, bundle snapshot, and mirror pose. I'm excited to work more on my finalized walk cycle as well as possibly flesh out my recontextualized audio scene.
For my final deliverables, I'll be having to make some looping animations for a game context, and I'm really looking forward to that. If it's anything like making walk cycles, I know it's something I will enjoy working on.
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