I really enjoyed the animation assignments this semester. Even though I learnt most of the equivalent material while studying for a year on 2D Animation on my BA, I skipped over a lot of them when learning 3D animation because, at the time, I didn’t think I would need to relearn the fundamentals. Yet now I can look back at my animation work before coming to UAL and see where not having relearnt them held me back a lot. At the time, I might have had the knowledge from my time on 2D, but I wasn’t always applying it to my 3D work.
The feedback sessions were super helpful, both for getting feedback on my own work and seeing the work of my classmates.
I would like to do more of these exercises (such as the previously mentioned ball bounces with different weights), so I plan to do this in my own time as personal work.
The main bulk of my work during my extension for animation was applying the feedback I received from George to the individual assignments he gave us. I also splined and cleaned-up the animation on my body mechanics shot.
For submission, I added some materials to the assets and tweaked the settings of the viewfinder in Maya so I could still playblast the animations but have them look nicer for the submission showreel.
If I had more time, I would have liked to do additional animations for some of the assignments. For example, I initially wanted to animate different ball bounces, giving each ball different weights. I do still plan to do this in my own time, but it would have been nice to have these for George to review and potentially give feedback for.
I really liked the week by week assignment set up of George’s classes, as it was helpful for me to stay on top of the work when I was essentially being held accountable each week to have work ready for review. I can see why this might not work for other projects, but for animation it was great to both get feedback on my own work each week, and to also see other people’s work and learn from their process and feedback.
This week we’ll be splining and cleaning up our Body Mechanics shot.
Body Mechanics Blocking feedback:
Feedback from George:
Arch back more in first few frames
Frame 14: Add in some asymmetry, make sure the silhouette is more readable. Give arms nicer arc
Frame 23: Hip placement feels weird, doesn’t really lift between here and the next frame, it just moves forward. Might be best to delete this pose entirely, or keep it until splined only to tighten graph curves before deleting keys on some of the controls later
Frame 29: Push the asymmetry, and make the silhouette readable
Frame 54: Add more scrunch to the pose, add anticipation before the pull up
Frame 63: More scrunch and curve to the back. Need to feel the effort of pulling himself up
Frame 70-76: Move elbow controllers. On 70, both should be pointing behind. On 76, screen left can be pointing more outwards. On 76 the screen left arm feels too straight and unreadable
Frame 84: The silhouette being unclear is a big thing here. Some unclarity is okay (eg it might be unavoidable to have screen right leg overlapping the screen right arm) but the rest should be as clear as possible
Frame 91: Try lifting the screen left arm. Not a necessity but it might help clear up the silhouette a bit
Frame 91-102: Have screen left arm more lifted in general, and more outwards/behind on frame 102
Next blog posts:
As mentioned in my previous Immersion blog post, I have an extension on the Animation Fundamentals unit and will be doing another blog post before the final submission post summing up what work I did between this week and submission.
This week we’ll be blocking our body mechanics shot using our reference and planning from last week.
Body Mechanics Planning Feedback:
Reference collection:
Extra reference (from similar jump but new camera angle)
Pose sketches:
Animatic using poses (overlayed on Maya background set up):
Sphere animation (roughly matched to the head, hips, hands, and feet of the reference footage):
Feedback from George:
Some of the arcs feel slow, make them more punchy
Don’t forget to switch hands and feet between IK and FK depending on if they have made contact with the wall or not
Towards the end of the reference shot when the guy stands up and his hands lift off the wall, the screen right hand peels off nicely because of the angle. Make sure to include and push this in anim
This week we looked at planning and video references for animations.
For filming your own video references, getting as much footage of the same movement as ideal, as you can then pick the one that looks best. This could mean it fits better into the shot/scene idea, it’s the most visually satisfying, it conveys the desired information and mood, etc. You can also edit and cut together video footage, such as taking part of the movement and slowing it down to create more dynamic movements.
It’s also best to get multiple angles, and to always try and film from multiple angles simultaneously so the movement matches up. This is so you can see the different parts of the body clearly moving, as from just one angle some movements may not be as clear or visible to the camera. I’ve shot references in the past with multiple angles by borrowing a friend’s phone and using that and my own to get a front and side angle. I just had to match up both in video editing software.
We can also use preexisting video reference, since some movements we might not be able to do (such as professional athlete movements for example). We just need to keep in mind how easy or difficult the reference might be to use when looking for some. I found a parkour video on youtube where they often capture movements from multiple angles, so I think I would like to find a quick jump from one of these videos to use as my reference.
Walk Cycle Spline Feedback 2:
Feedback from George:
Have the feet planting done in 3 frames. Frame 1, heel of foot touch down. Frame 2, foot touches down but toes still lifted. Frame 3, toes touch down and foot fully planted.
On frame 15-16, the back knee gets stuck. Move the foot control a tad so the knee moves between those frames
Around frame 33 the ball movement feels shaky for some reason, double check the animation editor arcs are smooth
This week we splined our blocked out walk cycle and started adding details in.
Side Step Spline Feedback:
Feedback from George:
Focus on the timing of the ball, give it more ease in and out both just before it follows the screen left foot on the side step, and as it holds balance over the left foot after the step (as the right foot is still moving over)
Have the feet touching the ground faster at the end of their movement
Have the side of the feet touch down first and then quickly touch down fully
Walk Cycle plan and blocked animation feedback:
Feedback from George:
Have the toes flap as they follow through on the movement of the foot
Make the heel of the foot touch down, then the main foot with the toe still up, then the whole foot touching down, each on a frame
On the front view, push the ball movement along the x axis more. May need to adjust the y translation followed by the x rotation accordingly
On frame 4, the space between the legs might be a tad too big (try reducing it and see how it feels), and the toe of the back foot should still be flat on the ground
This week we received feedback on our blocking animation of the side step, and learnt how to animate a walk cycle.
We will be using the Walker rig (a ball with legs) for the walk cycle so we can focus on the leading actions, and the follow-through effects of these on the rest of the lower body without worrying about the upper body for now.
Side Step Blocking Feedback:
Along with the animation plan, reference, and blocking, we were asked to take 3 pose sketches we’ve done this semester and pose the Bony using the sketches as reference. While doing this, we were asked to pay close attention to the weight distribution and balance. (George’s feedback shown as the sketches on top of uploaded images)
I noticed with all three poses I didn’t push the arcs enough, even when both the reference image and my sketches did so in the case of the middle image. With the left image, I think I focused too heavily on matching the pose and not enough on pushing the arcs and balancing the weight distribution, which made me completely miss how far back the dancer is on his grounded foot. For the right image, I missed how far forward the woman’s weight is in relation to her feet and, slightly so, her hips. I realised when thinking back that I was sat quite low when sketching the statue, and didn’t take this into account when studying the angles of her body. While this might have been fine for a general still life study, it might have been better for me to choose a more level eyed pose to study weight distribution from. Good to know for future studies like this!
Side step reference, plan, and blocking animation:
Feedback from George:
At start feet should be rotated out a bit more
Ball should lean more on the screen right leg as it raises screen left leg, otherwise it’s off balance
Don’t shift the weight of the ball so soon into the side step
Let the heel touch down first
Overshoot the body a little as the screen right foot is almost done with side step
Drag the screen left foot rather than lift it when it does the little corrective step
Body isn’t following through at points, its moving at the same time as the feet instead of lagging slightly
This week we got feedback on our splined side step animation, and learnt the importance of weight distribution balance in preparation for doing our side step animation. To help us learn how to balance weight distribution, we will be posing the Bony rig using our pose sketches as reference. In general, learning weight distribution is going to be key for any weight shift animations we do in the future.
Ball with Tail Spline Feedback:
Feedback from George:
Keep tail scrunched up for longer, until frame where ball jumped up, then have tail whip down within 2 frames
Tail still needs pulling up to follow the curve of the ball/itself more
Make tail whip after landing quicker and add secondary flick in also
This week we were shown how to spline our blocked animation, including cleaning up both the general animation and the animation curves with the curve editor.
Ball with Tail Blocking Feedback:
I uploaded my shot plan and blocking animation to syncsketch.
Feedback from George:
Tail should scrunch up more before jump
Remove rotation of ball other than for the stretch (on jump off and just before landing, landing shouldn’t have rotation) so the movement of the ball is more clear
Keep making sure the tail is following the arc of the ball and itself
Keep checking the end of the tail isn’t getting stuck between frames
Add more squash on landing
Give the tail more of a punchy whip movement on landing before it slowly settles
