In an attempt to enrich my understanding of body mechanics and the blocking animation process in Maya, I have referred to the work of Alessandro Comporota, who outlines the importance of each step in the blocking process. He accentuates that getting the timing and dynamic posing right is essential to creating good and clean animation.
How To Animate (part2): Blocking – YouTube
Using Maya to colour code the keyframes (red) versus the in-betweens and breakdown keys (green), I blocked out the mainframes of the animation using the reference footage. This helps prioritise the primary key poses versus those in support of them.
Blocking Phase
First Spline Pass and Improvement Comments
Doing the first spline pass, I learned a lot about converting stepped tangents into spline tangents and the process of cleaning the different arcs. Utilising this time to learn about the various uses of the tangents, for example, stepped, clamped, flat and linear. Below it is apparent that the curves (in this case, the waist rotation) were very messy and was causing it to have a slightly unnatural look in the viewport.
After using the tangent handles to tidy and create a clean arc of motion, I made use of the flat tangent to stabilise the movement of the following keyframes, which “automatically puts an ease-out and ease-in on a key” but never overshoots the motion (Roy, 2014, P.49). Due to the placement being after the direction change of the curve (after he sits down), the motion needed to remain still, and this tangent proved most effective.
After gaining feedback on my animation from class, I was made aware that the back arches much too extensively appear broken, and the fingers did not portray the weight of his body pressing down.
Making use of Mayas Grease Pencil Tool, I highlighted the issues to make it easier to directly correlate in the viewport what needed to be changed. In reference to Roy, the grease pencil is a key tool and can be used with many applications, which help animators create strong gestural arcs reminiscent of 2D wax/ blue pencils that are easily removed (2014). These lines, married with editable motion trails, can help create strong lines of action and arcs. However, Roy makes a clear point that to make the most effective use of the grease pencil tool, a Wacom tablet is essential to create the visual gesture required, and the effect of a mouse will not be majorly beneficial. In this light, due to the lack of equipment I had at the time of animating this, I used a mouse to give myself an indication of the areas I needed to fix (such as the overly curved back and circling the weight suggestion in the hands, so I did not forget when caught up in the animation process. Going forward, I will obtain a drawing tablet that enables me to utilise this tool to the best of my ability for future animations.
Improved Spline and Clean Up
After taking on these suggestions, there was a visible improvement in the animation quality, and I could not quite get the IK/ FK switch to look as clean as I had intended. I could not separate the arms from duplicating for visual frame placement due to the geo model and rigging. In order to solve this, when unparenting the hand constraints from one another, I also swapped them to IK from FK, instead of when he makes contact with the chair, which has a visible ‘jolt’ effect in the hands; however, it did not look outrageously out of place as the blend parent faded in strength along with side the FK Influence. The fingers also did not have the fluidity and follow through towards the end to take them out of a ‘floaty’ CG stage. They also moved a bit too much initially, which seemed unnatural because the fingers were being held still together in a grasp. There also was not enough bend in the fingers when taking the seat, despite being an improvement from the initial block out.
Final Version
Applying all these self-critiques, I focused on finger movement and added slight details to enhance the level of realism. F r example, adding subtle facial animations such as blinks and eyebrow movements. Since a majority of facial expression is created in the uppermost regions of the face, this felt like the primary area to focus on to pass as ‘realistic’, adding hair ‘bounces’ that follow through with critical movements. Reflectively speaking, the piece of animation has elements that need refining, particularly in weight distribution. For a better future understanding, I will practise more with a range of rigs to understand IK/FK seamless switching.
References
.Roy, K., 2014. H w to cheat in Maya 2014. Abingdon: Focal Press.