In Week 5's Wednesday day off I set to work on doing the bad limp walk exercise using Maya as I decided to do rejected lover in stopmotion as it would prove too challenging in Maya. This was also a chance to see if I could improve on my walks from last year.
Remembering how to do walks in Maya, I decided to start with a simple walk and as it proceeded add the limp into it. I was using the bony rig as I felt it would give a more human performance than the Keith rig would. I remembered to include holds in the walks by keying the translate Z key which allowed the rigs waist/legs to move forward then using translate Y to show the character moving up and down as he/she walks.
The walk cycle was simple, however when doing the limp it began to get more difficult. I intended to move the right foot upwards to show the pain in its foot, however I had neglected the timing of the movements in the leg or the character rocking forwards as she felt pain. Doing the animation I referred to my barsheets and reference footage for guidance as I was feeling agitated with the rig. Eventually I realised that this wasn't the best choice so I started again. Looking back at the reference footage I saw how I moved one leg forwards as I felt the pain in my right foot. Learning this I applied it to the animation and did the limp in the foot as the left foot moved forwards.
I felt calmer as I was making progress, and remembered to use the graph editor to correct any mistakes. I felt one of the issues in the animation was the legs and hip movements as they were at times lagging behind in some steps of the animation or didn't move in the right order when I corrected the waist movements. I was beginning to get agitated and I remembered how much of a headache Maya gave me in the first year of the course.
However I persisted and did more hip movements on the right leg to show the leg going up as she limped. In the reference footage I learned that the character rocked forwards which was an element I learned from doing my stopmotion version of this walk, so I communicated it to the rig.
The animation progressed well that I added a set based of a wall in front of a field with a sign post to show the story of the character falling off her bike. The piece was then finished and playblasted.
Looking back I would think this animation was a reminder of how difficult using Maya really was from my last year and that its even more of a challenge introducing the character based walks. In hindsight I should've considered the impact doing a walk to begin with would have when doing the limp and the timing it takes between leg movements.
In conclusion I may consider using 3D animation for more walk based animations, but as we were told in the briefing we didn't have to use 3D but it would be nice to include it, however I still feel conflicted about this matter.
In future I shall consider the exercise and think of a strategy to do the walks or any exercises in Maya so it won't be so stressful or too hard.
Bad Limp Animation.
Name: Janine Richards
Age: 30
Occupation: Yoga, Bike riding, knitting
Employment: Cashier at a flower store.
Family:
Judy Richards (Daughter)
Jordan Richards (Son) Serves in the army
Story:
It’s Saturday morning on a nice summers day, Janine decides to go for a ride on her bike. She rides down the long curved lanes of the country side. She embraces the warm air around her as she rides by. However she’s so distracted by the embrace of the breeze she was proceeding down hill at a tremendous rate of speed. She tries to apply her breaks but she was moving too fast and the bike came to a stop hurling forwards into a wall while Janine sours over it and into the field. She rises from the wall in pain as the crash caused her to sprain her ankle. She climbs over the wall and limps towards a nearby phone box to call her daughter for a lift home.
Remembering how to do walks in Maya, I decided to start with a simple walk and as it proceeded add the limp into it. I was using the bony rig as I felt it would give a more human performance than the Keith rig would. I remembered to include holds in the walks by keying the translate Z key which allowed the rigs waist/legs to move forward then using translate Y to show the character moving up and down as he/she walks.
The walk cycle was simple, however when doing the limp it began to get more difficult. I intended to move the right foot upwards to show the pain in its foot, however I had neglected the timing of the movements in the leg or the character rocking forwards as she felt pain. Doing the animation I referred to my barsheets and reference footage for guidance as I was feeling agitated with the rig. Eventually I realised that this wasn't the best choice so I started again. Looking back at the reference footage I saw how I moved one leg forwards as I felt the pain in my right foot. Learning this I applied it to the animation and did the limp in the foot as the left foot moved forwards.
I felt calmer as I was making progress, and remembered to use the graph editor to correct any mistakes. I felt one of the issues in the animation was the legs and hip movements as they were at times lagging behind in some steps of the animation or didn't move in the right order when I corrected the waist movements. I was beginning to get agitated and I remembered how much of a headache Maya gave me in the first year of the course.
However I persisted and did more hip movements on the right leg to show the leg going up as she limped. In the reference footage I learned that the character rocked forwards which was an element I learned from doing my stopmotion version of this walk, so I communicated it to the rig.
The animation progressed well that I added a set based of a wall in front of a field with a sign post to show the story of the character falling off her bike. The piece was then finished and playblasted.
Looking back I would think this animation was a reminder of how difficult using Maya really was from my last year and that its even more of a challenge introducing the character based walks. In hindsight I should've considered the impact doing a walk to begin with would have when doing the limp and the timing it takes between leg movements.
In conclusion I may consider using 3D animation for more walk based animations, but as we were told in the briefing we didn't have to use 3D but it would be nice to include it, however I still feel conflicted about this matter.
In future I shall consider the exercise and think of a strategy to do the walks or any exercises in Maya so it won't be so stressful or too hard.
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