This week in Animation 102 we would be looking into the aspect of posing the Buckid rig and getting it into positions ready for animation. The exercise this week would be a sitting down and standing up exercise in Maya and Stopmotion, this was the chance to do some animation using Buckid and the armatures. When doing animation work such as this Johny and Joe informed us that we would need to consider several elements such as the characters age and circumstances, the centre of gravity and how to fulfil the criteria.
We were told to take reference footage of the sitting down and standing up so that we could translate it into an animation. We were given several exercises to take reference footage such as sit down and stand up on a chair, sit down and stand up on the floor and lifting one leg from the ground. This was to give us an idea of how we would feel in these positions and then translate it into Buckid and the armatures. We did this over our break time slot and in pairs I was with Adam and Paige. We each took it in turns to do the exercises recording it on our phones in landscape view as recommended by the tutors. Upon recording the videos Adam and Paige uploaded the videos via google drive for us to use later
Next an exercise of key poses in Maya for the sitting down and standing up exercise. The idea being we would pose the rig in the three key poses sitting down, leaning forward and standing up. We would then place in the in-betweens to make it into a moving animation. To help us with this we were given a guide on blackboard and were shown a trick using quick sets. The quick sets isolate certain parts of the rig, so it would save the trouble of selecting those parts all over again. This could be done by selecting the rig parts, clicking the create option, sets, quick sets, name the set and add to the shelf and appear in the customs tool bar.
I set to work on my rig and it seemed simple enough but whilst trying to create the poses in key frames there was an issue. Whilst isolating the key frames was simple enough when I moved to position other keyframes the first keyframe was affected. I looked for advice on the matter from Adam and Johny who gave good advice but no matter what I did nothing seemed to work. I eventually got the poses done and tried animating it but this was an even bigger issue getting it to move. However using the quick sets the problem was corrected and I had a rough animation.
I was feeling rather excited as we'd do animation with the rigs and armatures and was eager to get started. When Joe mentioned using reference footage it made sense as this was more challenging for us and this was where observe, translate animate comes in. In doing the filming though I was slightly worried as the original plan was to film each other on our phones but I didn't do any filming and Adam said it would take a while to send the videos via email and without them I couldn't animate. I was having trouble understanding some of what Johny was asking us to do in terms of the quick sets but he was happy to explain it to me and I felt more assured.
When doing the poses however it was most difficult as every time the first key frame was altered I got anxious and after the next eight times I was becoming more and more agitated. When I finally got the poses done I tried animating them and this was even more difficult. I finally had an animation, I was relived and this made me realise how hard this was.
Reference footage.
I would think that there were some ups and downs of the session. The filming of the reference footage went very well as we communicated with each other when to do the pose and at what angles. However the fact that I hadn't done any filming of reference footage on my phone wasn't good as this would mean I didn't participate in filming. Upon doing the rig posing and learning how to do the quick sets I realised that this would be a simple task but as I progressed I was hitting problems in keeping the keyframes the same and unaltered. Every time I tried I was beginning to think this issue wouldn't be resolved at all and that I was wasting valuable time that I would usually use in the stopmotion suite.
We were told to take reference footage of the sitting down and standing up so that we could translate it into an animation. We were given several exercises to take reference footage such as sit down and stand up on a chair, sit down and stand up on the floor and lifting one leg from the ground. This was to give us an idea of how we would feel in these positions and then translate it into Buckid and the armatures. We did this over our break time slot and in pairs I was with Adam and Paige. We each took it in turns to do the exercises recording it on our phones in landscape view as recommended by the tutors. Upon recording the videos Adam and Paige uploaded the videos via google drive for us to use later
Next an exercise of key poses in Maya for the sitting down and standing up exercise. The idea being we would pose the rig in the three key poses sitting down, leaning forward and standing up. We would then place in the in-betweens to make it into a moving animation. To help us with this we were given a guide on blackboard and were shown a trick using quick sets. The quick sets isolate certain parts of the rig, so it would save the trouble of selecting those parts all over again. This could be done by selecting the rig parts, clicking the create option, sets, quick sets, name the set and add to the shelf and appear in the customs tool bar.
I set to work on my rig and it seemed simple enough but whilst trying to create the poses in key frames there was an issue. Whilst isolating the key frames was simple enough when I moved to position other keyframes the first keyframe was affected. I looked for advice on the matter from Adam and Johny who gave good advice but no matter what I did nothing seemed to work. I eventually got the poses done and tried animating it but this was an even bigger issue getting it to move. However using the quick sets the problem was corrected and I had a rough animation.
Feelings:
I was feeling rather excited as we'd do animation with the rigs and armatures and was eager to get started. When Joe mentioned using reference footage it made sense as this was more challenging for us and this was where observe, translate animate comes in. In doing the filming though I was slightly worried as the original plan was to film each other on our phones but I didn't do any filming and Adam said it would take a while to send the videos via email and without them I couldn't animate. I was having trouble understanding some of what Johny was asking us to do in terms of the quick sets but he was happy to explain it to me and I felt more assured.
When doing the poses however it was most difficult as every time the first key frame was altered I got anxious and after the next eight times I was becoming more and more agitated. When I finally got the poses done I tried animating them and this was even more difficult. I finally had an animation, I was relived and this made me realise how hard this was.
Reference footage.
Evaluation
I would think that there were some ups and downs of the session. The filming of the reference footage went very well as we communicated with each other when to do the pose and at what angles. However the fact that I hadn't done any filming of reference footage on my phone wasn't good as this would mean I didn't participate in filming. Upon doing the rig posing and learning how to do the quick sets I realised that this would be a simple task but as I progressed I was hitting problems in keeping the keyframes the same and unaltered. Every time I tried I was beginning to think this issue wouldn't be resolved at all and that I was wasting valuable time that I would usually use in the stopmotion suite.
Analysis:
The situation of the maya rigs wasn't helped by my Inpatients to try and get the rig to stay in place when doing the key poses. I feel I should've stayed calm and try to solve the problem but with some expert guidance from either James or Johny to amend this situation. I should've double checked the details of tonights task for the animation exercises so that I wouldn't have trouble understanding the exercise or get stuck. When doing the reference footage I possibly should've done some recording at the same time as when the others were doing their poses so that I would have some footage to save the trouble of downloading.
Conclusion:
Looking back on the session I would've done things differently. I would've asked if I could do some reference footage of my own so that I would've at least participated besides posing. In terms of the exercise I should've asked for more information on what we were trying to do with the exercise so that I wouldn't get stuck. In hindsight for the keyframes issue I should've brought this up with James so that I would know what to do in the event this ever happened again, and possibly see if others were having this problem and see how they overcame this. This session was a learning experience though and did confirm what I suspected walking animations and moving rigs in Maya is more difficult than first imagined.
Action Plan:
For future reference I would possibly make sure that I place my input in recording reference footage for future exercises using the rig. On the matter of the issues with the rig I would ask for advice on this matter and for the next week look at possible tutorials or even consider approaching my Lynda account for a possible solution to my problem. I would also consider the possibility of learning patience, when doing my work as "Patience yields focus" (Voltron Legendary Defender). In this realisation I knew that I would need to practice and work on the rig to see if I could perfect my understanding of the rig and do an improved response to the exercise.
Action Plan:
For future reference I would possibly make sure that I place my input in recording reference footage for future exercises using the rig. On the matter of the issues with the rig I would ask for advice on this matter and for the next week look at possible tutorials or even consider approaching my Lynda account for a possible solution to my problem. I would also consider the possibility of learning patience, when doing my work as "Patience yields focus" (Voltron Legendary Defender). In this realisation I knew that I would need to practice and work on the rig to see if I could perfect my understanding of the rig and do an improved response to the exercise.
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