Week 10 – Run Cycles – Nicole’s Blog

Morning Class:

This morning Alex talked a little about run cycles and explained what we will be doing today.

—Exercise—

We were provided with a Maya file and had to add an up pose to frame 4 and adjust the timing of the animation using the dope sheet.

Alec then explained how to add more personality and expression to the run cycle by altering the pose or adjusting the timing

—Feedback—

Alec came round and gave feedback as we worked on the exercise.

– Add an extra frame or two to the step over at the end

– Ease out the last frame

Afternoon Class:

After lunch Sorcha reviewed what we were going to cover. We looked at character rigging, how to create a design that will work and Sorcha showed us a few examples.

She also explained that you need to make the character big but not too big or else it will slow down After Effects and to leave some extra room for the character to swing their arms and legs on the canvas.

Sorcha’s recommendation: canvas size 4000×4000 pixels

Next we were shown how to organise our photoshop layers and we should merge as much as we can, if you’re unsure just group the layers instead. It is best to have a file where you design the full character, ready to be rigged, and a file where you separate all the pieces further and rig the character.

Sorcha then showed us how to break down the character further and make it able to move without it having breaks in the character.

Finally, we were shown how to import the character into After Effects and how to use Duik and the puppet tool.

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Homework:

Watch the videos in week 11 folder on Blackboard for next week.

Assignment 1:

This week I finished assembling the scene and uploading it to Unreal Engine.