WEEK 11 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING - 4th of March, 2019

WEEK ENDING - 10th of March, 2019

MONDAY - Mystery Box Workshop

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-2.html

THURSDAY - Mystery Box Workshop

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/mystery-box-maya-session-3.html

"After getting some feedback from Jon, I was advised to redo my walk cycle, just because it was looking a little bit weird with things clipping and, when splining comes in, sliding. So I did just that! At the end of this session, I managed to get all my major blocking done. So my next step is... steps, essentially. Make Max actually walk over to the box, and fix up the walk cycle that I've got going on at the moment. Feeling like good progress made this session!"

SUMMARY
This week has been all about the Mystery Box again. Mostly, the trial and error of it. I've been working on it and getting as much feedback as I can on what I'm doing, then applying it as best I can! I've learnt that there's a lot of retrying and restarting on elements in 3D animation, especially from seeing friends restarting entire sequences because of it. I feel like I'm going to have to do that at some point, but right now I'm just chipping away at this one file. Learning how to animate in stepped was really helpful, it's coming in handy with blocking out the animation and seeing how it'll look without having to really perfect it yet! But overall, I'm looking forward to doing more of the Mystery Box animation, I'm hoping it'll end up looking really cool when it's finished!

MYSTERY BOX - MAYA SESSION #3

In this session, I carried on with my Mystery Box animation.

Before we started on our own animations, we did a small exercise involving Max. We were given a file of Max sitting at a desk with a computer. He was set in a default sitting position, and our task was to show two different expressions with Max, using his body language and facial features. He had to be looking at something on the computer, and then react horrified to what he saw.

After we had our poses, we splined the two to create a short smooth animation.

After this exercise, it was essentially business as usual. After getting some feedback from Jon, I was advised to redo my walk cycle, just because it was looking a little bit weird with things clipping and, when splining comes in, sliding. So I did just that! At the end of this session, I managed to get all my major blocking done. Ignoring the walk cycle that's going to be fixed up, Max now:

• Sees the box
• Turns to look at it
• Checks his watch
• Looks back
• Ends up next to the box
• Crouches down
• Looks inside
• Stands back up in shock
• Points to the box
• Hands in the air
• Starts leaving

So my next step is... steps, essentially. Make Max actually walk over to the box, and fix up the walk cycle that I've got going on at the moment. Feeling like good progress made this session!

MYSTERY BOX - MAYA SESSION #2

This post is on our continuation of our CG Mystery Box animation!

For this session, I managed to get an actual proper start on my animation, where we were given a little more free reign of what we did in the session. But beforehand, we were given probably the most important piece of advice we could get for this project; how to animate in stepped.

Stepped animation is different from the final product due to it's rigidness and stiffness. Stepped doesn't spline or guess the movement between two keyframes, it just IS those keyframes. The movements snap from one pose to the next. 

Working in stepped is similar to how I animate in 2D, working out the key poses first, seeing how it looks, then going back and filling in the gaps.

With that helpful advice, I started to animate my sequence. I got my camera all set up, so that it would match the same framing setup as my animatic. Then I started to work on the first part of my animation, which is the walk past the box. I switched to a side view so that I could have a locked camera to Max's side, and I could work on it essentially the same way I would a 2D walk cycle.

Not much to say for this session apart from that, just gotta keep working on the animation.