I sent this to the team to show the progress from layout>blocked animation> final animation
Link to Spreadsheet to keep track of animation phases and completed shots to start rendering.
As I was mainly working on the Environment layout, lighting and rendering, it was initially planned for me to do just a few animation shots after being blocked as I am less skilled at animating than the others, but I put time and effort into them. In all, I have (so far) completed around 35-40 seconds of animation.
I completed the blocked out shot 04 and 05, animated shot 12 fixed up some of shot 11, and redid shot 07.
SQ03_SC04
Rachel blocked this out for me:
Firstly, I took it into syncsketch and drew inbetweens to give me an idea of where to build off of.
What was of great help to me was Tween Machine. It helped me hold poses so simply and helped me determine which keyframe to favor more (first or last). It really helped speed up the process.
Keith Sintay
When I went to Dingle, I went to Keith Sintay’s animation workshop. It was so useful and he went into great depth when discussing animating in maya and went on to show us a short demonstration. He blocked poses every 10 frames, then every 5 and so on. However, he did not stay in stepped animation for very long and explained how he splines the animation very early after getting a blocked out sense of time as going from stepped to spline is often a game changer (of which I wish I had known long beforehand). He also mentioned using atools, which is free to download and is installed by simply dragging it into the maya scene (I was so impressed by this).
Some helpful tips
Working as part of a team:
- Don’t expect to be given great shots to work on when starting out.
- Keep any irritation at people within.
Composition:
- Foreground, Mid-groung and background elements should read clearly.
- Stick to the rule of thirds.
- Have clear silhouettes.
- Asymmetry is more interesting.
Workflow:
- Work in linear animation, not stepped.
- Do as much in the workspace as possible and not the graph editor.
- Take breaks.
- Know the context of your shots.
Spines:
- Bipeds use an FK Spine.
- Start with COG (center of gravity) then work up the back.
- Fingers have a tendency to lean towards the middle.
- Turn off weighted tangent and turn on auto key.
- Animate on 5 and 10 to gauge the timing.
- To check COG draw a line from the pit of the neck down to the inside of the foot.
- Always check animations from above.
- Get ATools!
- Use animation layers for breathing cycles and laughs.
I did try aTools but I don’t think I got the chance to see the full extent of how useful it can be. Its useful for creating my own buttons for selections. This was useful for selecting the whole rig to be able to change timing within the graph editor. It also has tween machine installed within it which was handy. Although Keith Sintay only showed us a small portion of atools, I had a look at this tutorial. I think it would be extremely useful if we had to do lip syncs so we could create our own keys for vowels.
Drew Adams
Drew Adams had some helpful tips on working from a blocked animation to a splined animation. I found this quite difficult to start with.
Some helpful points made:
- Start with the hips then move up the spine. Finish with the head.
- Nail timing in stepped before switching to splined mode.
- After switching to spline, check the moving holds.
- Clean the graph editor to clean up the curves.
Stepped Further:
Splined:
Feedback
Alec‘s feedback: lengthen the time he is crouched to give him more weight. Exaggerate the end pose when the character is in the box- legs are high in the air. Flop back down.
We used syncsketch for feedback:
Rachel:
- Hands and fingers remain bent up as they fall.
- Keep feet flat until the legs straighten then add the heel/ball rotation.
- Arch back towards the end and have him slump after throwing the bottle.
- rotate shoulders more to emphasise the body throwing.
Final Playblast in my environment setup:
I also fixed up the sticky hand issue where he holds the bottle for slightly too long. It was more difficult because I had to switch between two bottle rigs (one connects to his hand and the other alone). He does have facial animation, but it’s a little difficult to tell side on.
SQ03_SC05
Rachel’s Block for Sq03_sc05:
Before working on this shot, I realised that I had far too many keyframes at the beginning of shot 04 when trying to work on inbetweens so it was quite messy by the time i went back to splining it. I tried to make it easier for myself and do less inbetweens and work with tween machine and splining. I made linear tangents when necessary to stop sliding issues, as Drew Adams discussed fixing the moving holds first when transitioning from stepped to splined mode.
Stepped further:
Splined Progress:
I had to erase the blocked out translations when he walked because it would cause a lot of unnecessary drifting, so I still need to focus on getting the walk right. He looks like he has a bit of a limp. I also changed a lot of the previously blocked out animation but the timing is still there.
Feedback Before Facial:
Rachel’s Main points:
- rotate hat higher at the beginning and samuel’s back. Have him look up at it as he is initially proud of his find.
- After he sees the hole in the hat, he is disappointed and saddened. Show this.
- Have him slouch in a deep sigh as this gives the animation and slouching more purpose.
- Keep eyes locked on the old man as he is turning to look around the corner.
- Settle hand slightly towards the end.
Rachel also helped me block out the walk again as I was having issues. I hope to work on this for a while after hand in to perfect it for the end of year show. Looking back on it, I feel it is quite stiff.
Playblast in my finished background setup:
Further Animation:
Rachel had added blendshapes to the hat so I tried to animate it slightly. Alec also thought the arm raise at the end was too weird as it looked like he was trying to lean against the wall so I cut that out and kept it relaxed.
SQ04_SC12
After Rachel’s Blocked Animation :
I was using the given time frame as I didn’t realise we could go out of this as we had music created for us, however I know it is definitely far too fast.
With feedback review:
- slow the start right down.
- hold some head poses looking at the stick.
- Move hand with arm.
- Curve shoulders more towards the camera when bringing the stick around.
- have the shoulders nearly side on when looking up.
- Have head relax after shoulders and so on towards the end.
Further Adjustments:
- Bring thumb up before settling to grab on the stick.
- Fix stick swinging too close to the camera.
- Stick jitters in one place.
- Make back of neck move when shoulder relaxes at the end. (couldn’t do this because of rig limitations).
Ready for facial:
Final Playblast:
Alec suggested we have the coin start to fall in this scene to follow through to it landing in his hand in the next shot. Rachel added this in before we rendered the shot.
SQ03_SC07
Greta had animated another version of this before the hand in, however she didn’t animate it enough. It was simply too subtle and she hadn’t animated the right hand, so I went over it and ended up having to completely begin again because it would be easier as it’s quite a short animation. I redid the watch animation also with a rig connected to Walter rather than the separate rig, as this meant it would move smoothly with the character.
I think I could make it slightly more subtle if I have time to go back over it before the end of year show. The time in the card has also changed to 4am.
Editing SQ04 SC11
Rachel had given Greta some feedback when it came to this shot as the initial plan was to have Samuel appear from behind the wall.
I edited this to save some time, while Greta worked on trying out zdepth on the background renders within nuke.
Final Animation Edit
The edit of my animation input:
Abigail Gelston 