#041 GAD BA2 - P1: Animation Assignment

For our first animation assignment, we have been asked to animate a pre-rigged character called Moom using the software Maya. We have to animate a total of 3 animation cycles, consisting of a walk, a run and a jump. It goes without saying that I want my animations to be as lifelike and as smooth as possible, so I will be looking at both small and big changes I can make in the animation using the rig for the best possible animation.

I've never used the Autodesk Maya before, only in 3DS Max. While they are similar, there are some big difference that I will have to adjust to so our first Maya tutorial was an interesting one. We were shown the basic tools, shortcuts, techniques and the general layout of Maya. Because of my existing knowledge of using 3DS Max, the process of learning the basic controls was not too difficult, in fact, my biggest problem had nothing to do with the software itself but more the operating system (Mac). In the next tutorial we went through the processes of making objects with simple shapes such as a house and an animal which I continued to do at home after the tutorial session.

A simple house using basic shapes in maya.

A rare, never seen before animal called a "piation" made from basics shapes in maya.

The next Maya tutorial session we had was more on setting up the project files and folders using the correct procedures to animate a bouncing ball rig. To begin, we had to set up a project folder and reference the ball rig into the first scene. While it sounded fairly simple, they were a lot of little things to remember such as using the correct file names to avoid confusion when looking back at the project files for making changes/edits to the animation; It took me a few attempts to get it right but in the end I got it working. The main point stressed was to have multiple saves allowing the animator (me) to revert to a previous version of the animation if I make a mistake. So after setting up the project folder and setting the rig reference up, I saved the first scene as "bouncing_ball_animation_001".

Now the animation stage begins... Using the project folder I created yesterday, I opened up the ball rig in Maya. We were then instructed in setting up the correct frame rate, axis and playback speed. For this project we were working at 24 FPS, so using the animation settings window I set up the scene with the correct settings for the timeslider and the overall animation settings. I changed the World Coordinate System to have the Up Axis to Z instead of Y, the Working Units to millimetres from centimetres and made sure the time was set to "Film (24 fps)".

With the settings adjusted to my preference I begun the animation sequence. To get the ball to move up and down it is a simple matter of creating a few key frames and adjusting the height of the ball. The problem is that ball has no squash or stretch and no easy in/out on the movements or any realistic physics.

First things first, I need to add some squash and stretch to the animation. I've only added a little bit to the ball, as if it is made of a hard rubber but you can exaggerate the squash and stretch to extreme amounts, almost till the point where the ball can be flattened into a disk. This small change, with a few tweaks, makes a big difference, the results speak for itself.

The next step is to add some acceleration/deceleration to the ball animation, to do this you use the graph editor. The graph editor stores all information on the movement of the ball such as the position of the ball, the rotation, the speed of movement as well as the key frames in the animation. With a small amount of time and a few changes in the graph editor, the animation is much better already, but I still think I can do better. So far here is my result.

I will come back later to revisit this animation as I still wish to perfect it, however, for learning the basics It is an acceptable end result. I plan to tweak the graph editor a little more and improve on the squash and stretch during the bounce and when the ball impacts the floor as well as adjusting the acceleration and deceleration throughout the cycle.