For this assignment, I was tasked with creating two 3D animations with a pre-made rig, each of which should convey the weight of physical motion and the unique personality of the character respectively.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The first step I needed to take was deciding what actions I was going to animate with the rig. To make the most out of this process and gain sufficient inspiration, I did my best to research different demo reels from multiple animators and created a YouTube playlist to collect them all together.
Through watching these videos, I came across inspiration for my own animations, the likes of which included this charming little short made by Alice Smith in 2020 from the online school ‘Animation Mentor’ (2:46). It’s main character is reminiscent in design to the rigs we were given, which stood out to me as potentially being a good example to take inspiration from. ( https://youtu.be/KMpDF_OG2WI?t=165 )
Another animation that stuck out to me was this one by Natasha Antonova in 2020 from AnimSchool (1:03), which displayed really expressive and cartoon-inspired movement that creates a portrayal of an anxious character. ( https://youtu.be/VImvmovhU6U?t=62 )
And in another demo reel from Algonquin College, there were a few animated shots that I was drawn to (0:28, 0:45, 2:56), which gave off personality and also pandered to my greater interest in traditional 2D animation. ( https://youtu.be/5EIfIF_9arw )
_______________________________________________________________________________
With all of these inspirations gathered and giving me ideas, I started planning the first of two animations, with this one in particular focusing on full body movement to show proficiency in navigating and utilising the controls of the rig.
To fit this theme, I ended up decided to animate the rig preparing to jump and spinning 360 degrees to land facing the camera again. Along with searching up animation reference videos online, I also drew inspiration from the spin jump move from the Super Mario franchise.
Using this reference video I found on YouTube, I traced over the key poses of the movement with a stick figure to more clearly define the shape and angle of each part of the body. You can see a clear wave shape that forms above the collected poses, along with the prominent twist in the legs as the body begins the spin and the emphasis on stability on the lower half of the body with the landing poses. Getting the posture and stance down for the key poses will be one of the main elements to scrutinize for the final animation. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJlY4ceEY0k )
With this foundation planned out, I began work on the first animation in Autodesk Maya. I was originally planning on using the Grease Pencil tool to make a rough 2D representation of the animation, but compared to my previous time using the tool, I didn’t feel like I was getting the timing across well enough, so I scrapped that idea and attempted to fully plan it out in 3D through the key frames.
I then started to implement the keyframes for the jump and spin, making sure to add a good bit of anticipation that conveyed the energy and weight needed to perform the jump, as shown the the reference video.
I came across this funny moment where the rig started spinning when it landed, which I believe was due to the original keyframe I had set. I had spun the rig 360 degrees, and the keyframe was just a copy of the first frame, so since Maya keeps track of the number of spins, it meant getting a funny little spin. And while yes, I was definitely humoured by it, I was also thankful that I had figured out the issue with no real trouble.
Even with previous animations I’ve done with spherical shaped rigs, I have always enjoyed using the upper most control to adjust the squash and stretch of the form. While it is a small detail on first blush, it can really add to the weight and authenticity of movement when used correctly. I used this technique to emphasise the rise and landing of the rig to imply the gravity exists and is impacting the movement.
From here, I was adjusting the timing of the keyframes, and adding any more that would help smooth out the overall movement. This process did make adjusting timing later on a bit of a pain, but this also led to an unexpected inclusion for the final animation.
While making some final timing adjustments, there ended up being a slight delay on the feet, but when I watched it over, it had created this movement of the right leg jutting out in a pirouette as the rig spun, which instantly appealed to me when I saw it. I decided to keep this in to help guide the viewer’s eye through the spin.
With this, I just needed to refine the weight of the landing, and the final animation was complete. In retrospect, I wish I could have spent an extra couple of frames on the apex of the anticipation to give more emphasis to the jump, and maybe I could have adjusted the right leg to stick out a bit more and also last for a few more frames. Despite these small details, I am still overall very happy with how this turned out.
~~~~~FINAL ANIMATION: WEIGHT AND FULL BODY MOVEMENT~~~~~
_______________________________________________________________________________
For the second animation, I had decided on animating the rig excitedly sitting on a block before thrusting all of it’s energy into a large jump to the ground. I wanted to convey a very energetic character who always needs to move and can’t stand just sitting in place.
I had a more difficult time assembling references, so I decided to use myself as reference and enacted the movements to gauge timing and weight.
Once I had the scene set up and the camera sorted out, I moved the rig into position on top of the cube. I had already made a mistake however, moving the main control at the bottom rather than the torso of the rig. I had luckily figured this out when the rig’s feet wouldn’t land on the plane, and discovered my mistake early enough to readjust and reimplement the keyframes I already had.
I started with animating the kicking of the legs, taking a decent amount of time adjusting the timing and smoothness of the movement so that it would convey that excitable and energetic character I wanted it to.
This was also when I discovered that you can copy all the keyframes on one section of the model and paste it in another section, which helped a lot for this beginning part of the animation. I also included some squash and stretch to really emphasise a bouncy and cherry disposition within the character.
The next part of the animation was hard to work on without any other references but myself, so this took an even longer amount of time to refine the timing of the movement. The roll of anticipation before the jump was an especially difficult part, and I don’t believe I really got the weight of the movement across, whether because of the speed of the movement or something else I can’t quite understand.
While the positions of the legs took a lot of time too, I had more enjoyment figuring out how to make them react to the ‘gravity’ in the scene. It would have been good to add a few more frames to the jump movement to emphasise the chugging motion of the right leg, which is barely perceptible in the final animation.
While this second animation was a bigger challenge to tackle, and I don’t think I got everything to look the way I wanted it to, I feel like I made a really good effort to portray this kind of movement and put character into that movement.