While I’m still working on the bodysuit in Marvelous Designer, I wanted to animate a walk cycle to use for simulating the clothes in Maya. I added preroll frames at the beginning with the default pose keyed in. This is so the clothes have time to settle and move into the initial pose before the main animation begins during the simulation. I exported this out of Maya as an alembic cache, and tested quickly that the animation will import to Marvelous Designer which it does.
The next steps will be to finish the bodysuit and try simulating it on top of the walk cycle.
I also modeled a basic window scene in Maya and laid out the UVs so everything is ready for export to UE5, where I will add materials, lighting, and render from.
This week is final feedback before submission, so no assignment this week.
Week 8 Assignment: Spline
When trying to get some of the mouth shapes to look more appealing, I found it difficult to do so with some shapes without them losing a semi realistic look. For these instances I usually went with something in-between what I had and the shapes George drew in the syncsketch.
When I initially went to spline, the animation still felt very floating in areas, so I went back again and added more blocking keys in before splining again. This helped a lot, especially for the more subtle movements.
Spline Feedback:
Track the arc and ease in/out of the nose tip as the head shakes back and forth in the beginning, and soften these arcs
Push the mouth shapes more on the big open shapes
Careful with the blinks to not have the eyeball become too static on open/close
Play with spacing of the nose arc on “Everything”, its pretty evenly spaced currently
This week was mainly small adjustments and fixes, with the bulk of the work going into adding another character to Shot 0120 and replacing the wolf with the wolfdog in Shot 0130. I do like how the previs is coming together, but I would have liked a few more shots in there. I don’t think I’ll have time to add the additional shots for this submission next week, but hopefully I will be able to do so next term. If not, I can always add them at the beginning of summer before I start doing full animation work.
Previs Feedback:
With Shot 0020/0040/0060, instead of changing the camera angle try instead having the camera zoom in more and more on the wolf with each shot, mirroring the zoom in on the main character. Could even add a reflection of the main character in the eye of the wolf, and have Shot 0060 be a super close up on the eye
The main character’s body and head should be turned a lot more towards the camera in Shot 0070
In Shot 0120, the main character (smaller female rig) should be in the middle. This might make the tall guy coming out from behind her a little difficult due to his height, but try it anyway and see if there’s a way around that issue
In the following shot (0125) have the characters spaced out in a more visually appealing way
For Shot 0130, don’t have the camera go quite completely side on, have a big of an angle on the wolf instead
Have the wolf pounce at the camera just before the cut in Shot 0170
Add more personality to the slouched guy front left and the muscly guy back right in Shot 0090 (table scene, now towards end). Can have the slouched guy’s head leaning back more as if he’s bored/tired. Muscly guy can be curled over eating, less focused on surroundings (if for example I want him to be the foodie guy, can be something else, just add more to his vibe)
Instead of barking, could try having the wolf tilt head back and howl in Shot 0200
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 I’ve been focusing on animation. I’ve been finding it difficult to get myself working lately, so I wanted to start with a shorter shot first before jumping into anything too big. I picked shots 0170 and 0180 (I decided to merge those two shots together as the cameras were too similar for a shot change to not feel weird).
I also decided to block all active shots for now so I can import them to UE5 and render the full film with blocked anim to test how it all looks, before going back and splining/cleaning up animation later. This way even if everything goes wrong after blocking and for some reason I can’t do more animation work, I at least still have a full film with blocked animation for submission.
