Below are the final playblasts of my Monty rig animations reflecting studies of weight in motion / body mechanics, and of conveying emotion / personality.
Here are my playblasts displayed in SyncSketch:
Motion: https://syncsketch.com/sketch/981db0adfa61/
Emotion: https://syncsketch.com/sketch/8f3249476ba9/
Motion View 1:
Motion View 2:
Emotion View 1:
Emotion View 2:
Reflection
Going into this assignment was quite nerve-wracking for me as I had not touched Maya, or Maya’s animation tools to be exact at all before this year. It has been quite a lot to wrap my head around but after completing this assignment I feel much more confident and more aware of what I am working with now. The tutorials I watched from both my tutors and youtube videos, the reference videos I found, the use of the 12 principles of animation, and inspiration from animators and classmates have all helped me throughout this assignment.
I feel as though I did well in structuring my plan and the research I have done – I made sure I wanted to gather great understanding and knowledge before I got into this. I also think I did well in creating something appealing in both the motion and emotion animations; capturing the motion of pushing and jumping, and the emotion of feeling tired. Aswell as this, I also surprised myself at using the animation editors the best I could. This included the Dope sheet, the Tweenmachine and the Graph editor.
I tried my best to convey weight in motion, focusing on body mechanics, and conveying personality. However, I feel as though I could do better in preparing the keyframes and positioning the monty rig so that it looks more appealing and realistic, rather than stiff with little weight etc, the legs, the box movement. I know for next time I have to be careful of where the rig parts are positioned as they may move to a wrong place during the process etc. the knee constraints and the bottom circle move tool.
Overall I think I did a good job in making these animations. I have gained better understanding of 3D animation, I have improved greatly from my first few attempts, and I am excited to bring these skills into the Second Animated Short assignment.