I’ve been a bit slow with progress the past couple of weeks, but I’ve managed to make a start on animating. I’ve also found a few more issues with the rig that I’ve been able to fix, one by using the Discord server the creator of the rigs made for users. I also added a Bugs/Issues page to my Google Sheet that I’m using to keep track of the project, mostly so I can note down issues as they come up to look into later and keep track of what I’ve done to fix issues that may come up again and need the same fix. This sheet did prove helpful when I had to redo all of the changes I made to the original rig file due to part of the rig breaking in one of the early rendition scenes. I didn’t notice this issue until part way through animating, but was able to use the sheet I made to quickly reapply the changes without having to try and remember off the top of my head what changes I made.
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
In Maya, I posed some of the ‘Body Mechanics Rigs‘ (created by Joe Daniels) in the subway train. I then imported these into UE5 so I could set up the cameras there, and export the cameras back into Maya for animating. While convoluted, I found setting up the cameras in Maya less intuitive than in UE5, and I think overall I saved time as setting them up in UE5 was quick and easy when also using my storyboard sketches as reference.
I then set up each key shot (the shots I consider necessary to convey my project idea) in Maya with the Apollo rig referenced in. I had already deform wrapped the clothes to the skin of the rig and hidden the faces beneath the clothes, and saved this as a separate scene to be referenced in.
Before I got ahead of myself, I wanted to test the pipeline I had planed out to import the animation into UE5. From previous research, I decide to export the rig geometry as an alembic. I did a very rough animation for shot 0070, and exported this for the test. However for the materials on the rig, I misunderstood how these would transfer in and found that while the materials did import, they all showed as black. I put this aside to fix later, and I was then able to set up the alembic in the sequencer and see that, other than the materials, the alembic import would work as I planned.
For the materials it was a little convoluted but again, would save time later, to recreate all the materials in UE5, make sure the names of the UE5 materials matched the Shading Group node of the materials in Maya, and (while I couldn’t 100% confirm this was necessary, it works as desired) assigned the materials to the geometry faces rather than the object as a whole. I also had to make sure to assign the hidden faces a unique material that, in UE5, was transparent or “invisible”.
While I was already planning on switching out the subway train materials for my own, seeing the Apollo rig in the level gives me an even bigger urge to do so, as the contrast between realism and stylised stands out far too much to me.
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
This week we are going to be animating a ball with a tail, referencing squirrel footage for the moment. We aren’t going to be focusing too much on how the body moves, as we are mainly practicing the anticipation movement before the jump, and the follow through of the tail in regards to the body.
George also mentioned it’s better to exaggerate and overshoot these kinds of movements and then scale it back depending on feedback, since when working in a study animation supervisors don’t want to have to keep telling you to increase movements bit by bit by bit. It’s a better workflow to overshoot (within reason of course), and it saves time on feedback since whoever is critiquing can say something like “scale that back by about half” rather than having to guess how much it needs increasing.
The animation for next week should be blocked so we can practice working pose to pose and blocking out anim. The week after will be splining and clean up.
Pendulum Feedback
I uploaded both my pendulum plan and animation to syncsketch.
Feedback from George:
Bottom joint should trail back slightly more
Bottom joint shouldn’t go higher after stopping than while moving (I originally thought this might give the feeling of the base stopping suddenly some weight, but I can see now it feels wrong)
The movement of the second from the bottom joint just before it stops swinging back and forth should be reduced slightly
End of animation could do with being extended to give more time for the bottom joints to finish moving. Feels a bit too quick on the last few back and forth swings
This week George showed us a cool gif that explains and shows examples of the 12 Principles of Animation:
Squash and Stretch
Timing and Motion
Anticipation
Staging
Follow-Through and Overlapping Action
Straight Ahead and Pose-to-Pose Action
Slow In and Out
Arcs
Exaggeration
Secondary Action
Solid Drawing
Appeal
George mentioned to think of the solid drawing more as solid posing when it comes to 3D Animation.
We also watched a video about using spheres in more complex shots to break down motion arcs, and how tracking over existing shots with high visual appeal with spheres can show how simple it can be to create such appeal. The breakdown of the shot from ‘Brave’ was my favourite, as when viewing the shot alone it was easy for me to get overwhelmed when thinking about how the animator managed to create such satisfying movement in the characters, and while the overlay of the spheres doesn’t discount the animator’s talent it does make it seem much more achievable with practice and understanding.
George advised we do some post sketching, focusing on anticipation, lines of action, and clear silhouettes. I went to the V&A museum to sketch some of the statues, and also used the Bodies in Motion site to sketch some still frames of interesting poses. I sometimes focused only on the silhouette, sometimes only drew a stick figure representation, and sometimes sketched out the full or nearly the full pose. I also tried to draw over some with lines of action so I can translate this understanding of them into my 3D animations.
For the practical work, we animated a pendulum shot today, with extra focus on learning the ‘Follow-Through and Overlapping Action principle.
We also got feedback on our bouncing ball animation from last week.
My bouncing ball animation:
My feedback:
Have more of an arc on the entrance drop of the ball
Have the stretch come in a little later and make it more extreme
On the later bounces, track how low the ball is and make sure its height at the frame before impact is getting lower each time
Drop off the squash and stretches sooner
Have more rotation on the last few bounces and as it rolls
Add a few more frames to the end to give it time to come to a halt
For this lecture, we were introduced to the brief and George demonstrated how to do a bouncing ball animation in Maya.
We were shown a good YouTube channel, 3D Animation Internships, which shows shot progressions from various big 3D Animated films.
For Maya, we were first shown how to set up a new project:
File > Set Project…
Then George showed us how to change preferences and the best preferences to use:
Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences
Once we had set up the new project and our preferences, we then downloaded a ball rig from Behance and referenced it into Maya. George then drew out how to time out the bouncing ball, explaining how the motion and energy of the ball drops off steadily until it comes to a stop. He also explained how the ball will be at its slowest at the top of its arc, and fastest at the bottom, and drew the timing of these frames accordingly. As a class we followed along with George as he animated the ball in Maya using the drawn out timing as reference, first blocking out the ball at its lowest and highest points, then the arc of the movement, then the speed. Finally, we added in some squash and stretch. He also explained how even realism animation has squash and stretch, just not the change of volume that stylised animation has, such as crouching before a jump and then stretching out during the jump.
George also explained that rotation order when animating is important to avoid gimble lock, which can cause animations to bug out and not work as wanted. When using the rotation tool while animating in Maya, the rotation order should be x>y>z. This can sometimes differ between different software.
Before the next session, we need to make a SyncSketch account (for feedback sessions), finish the ball shot, and upload it to Syncsketch. We should only playblast our shots for these feedback sessions instead of rendering, which we should do for the final submission.
We were also told to buy a copy of ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’ which I already own from my previous studies.
