An essential part of the animation process is the collection of reference footage. It can take the animation to a level of realism or stylization that sells the performance to audiences more effectively. Kenny Roy’s How to cheat in Maya 2014 suggests that before starting an animation having a clear plan, such as thumbnails, are ideal before you start your reference footage to get a strong conveyance of performance across (2014). However, due to the simplicity of creating an animation just to work through general body mechanics, I made reference footage based on how I would generally sit down rather than add extravagant performance.
Reflecting on this video, my reference footage could be significantly improved in terms of angles and capturing speed. Going forward, it would be wiser to capture multiple angles (front, side and back) to get a clear picture of what is happening when animating in 3D space. Also, capturing footage at a higher frame rate (e.g. 60 fps) so the frames are easier to break down when importing into Maya. Watching youtube videos from Sir Wade Neistadt, I took on some advice and bought a compactable tripod to make filming from specific angles easier to achieve in future. This is also an easily portable, compactable and adjustable tripod which should greatly benefit my reference footage creation in the future when doing more intricate performances.
Take Your Animation to the Next Level & Capture GREAT Reference – YouTube
When recording reference footage, Kenny Roy also suggests finding many references on youtube alongside your reference footage to gather enough material to successfully get the realism and performances nuances across in your animation (2014).
Due to my physical limitations in performing advanced body mechanics, I have found several sources on youtube for potential animation tasks that could fit this criterion going forward to the next task.
Scared walk start to run transition animation reference – YouTube
Animation reference – Jump 3 – YouTube
50 Ways to Jump + Sit + Fall – YouTube
References
Roy, K., 2014. How to cheat in Maya 2014. Abington: Focal Press.