Term 1 Showreel:
Here’s my Term 1 showreel, featuring the projects I’ve worked on so far. It’s been an exciting journey of learning and development, and I’m looking forward to building on these skills in the next term.
Design Proposal
In my design proposal, I’ve outlined the concepts behind my previous project and the direction for my upcoming work.
This is my final version of the spline for the Body Mechanics Assignment. After completing the blockout, I focused on refining the animation in the spline stage. I adjusted the foot placement and smoothed out the transition into the sitting pose, ensuring the timing, weight distribution, and sitting in the chair felt natural. I also tried to exaggerate some poses to make it look more dramatic as George suggested.
Here is my final video –
While blocking out the animation, I focused on how the character’s centre of gravity shifts during the movement. I made sure the weight felt balanced and natural, especially when lowering into the chair.
I did face some trouble with foot placement and the distance between the walk and the chair. It took several tries to adjust the positioning and make sure the sitting pose towards the chair looked smooth and believable and doesn’t make it look like the body is falling. I also struggled with timing during the descent into the chair, as the movement either felt too fast or too slow and the knees kept changing as the torso moved.
One of the most crucial areas I’ll be refining during the spline stage are the arcs. Both the arm and body arcs have been challenging to get right, and they’re essential for making the whole movement feel organic and smooth. I’ll also adjust the head movement to match the body more naturally.
The blockout gave me a good foundation, and I’m excited to see how these changes will improve the final result.
For the body mechanics assignment, we were told to understand how a body works mechanically focusing on posture, centre of gravity, weight shifts etc. It is a foundation to understand how to animate as they make movements feel believable and grounded.
We were given many options but I chose ‘Standing to Sitting on a Chair’. For that, I first started to find references on the internet to find a version that I liked. After going through a lot of videos, I decided to shoot one myself.
I tried to make it a stylised version where a woman comes from the side of the chair and sits on it gracefully. I shot the reference and sketched out a 2D trial animation to see how it would look. Then I planned out the key and contact poses to analyse the reference and help me in the blockout.
This helped me prepare for the blockout I will be doing next week by breaking down the actions and analyse the references.
After feedback on the walk cycle blockout in the last session, I started making the changes and converted it into spline. Certain details like the positioning of the legs as well as the rotation during the weight shift made the spline a little better.
After making these changes, I finalised my walk cycle in spline. Here is what it looks like:
Once that was done, we moved on to learning how to block out a walk cycle using the same character, ‘Walker.’ We were told the main key poses that are needed for a walk cycle:
These poses form the foundation of the walk, and we were told to create a simple 24-frame walk cycle from left to right and also from the front view before extending it to 48 frames. For reference, I also used “The Animator’s Survival Kit” by Richard Williams, which helped me understand the movement better later on.
I started by referencing the walker into my scene. For this assignment, we also played with the lighting by adding two directional lights to make the scene look better. I then proceeded to place the Contact Poses at frames 0, 12, and 24. Then, I added the Passing, Down, and Up Poses, spacing them evenly with 3 frames between each. This structure helped create the rhythm for the walk cycle. Then it became easy to replicate these initial 24 frames and changing the values to create an opposite walk. At this point I had a basic walk cycle ready with 48 frames.
After laying out the basic poses, I went further and added some character to the animation. I used the front view of the character and applied the principles of weight shift to make the walk feel more realistic by moving it along the x axis on the leg that it shifts its weight on. I also incorporated a slight rotation with the weight shift on the sides to enhance the fluidity of the movement. Additionally, I brought the feet a little closer together and turned them slightly outward to make the walk appear more realistic. These subtle adjustments helped the cycle feel more grounded and natural.
This week, I worked on refining my weight shift and turning it into spline, focusing on the feedback and review from previous session.
I started by revisiting the blockout, where George had provided feedback on the weight shift, certain leg positions, and foot rotations. After making the necessary changes based on his suggestions, I converted the animation to spline and focused on editing the graphs to create smoother transitions. The goal here was to eliminate any sharp movements and ensure that the transition between key poses felt natural and the weight shift feels realistic.
Looking ahead in the next week, I’ll continue refining the cycle when I turn it into spline by adding more details and editing the graph as needed.
We continued working in Maya by setting up our projects and using the “Walker” model as a reference in my file. The first step was to create a selection set of the main controls we needed for key framing and add it to the shelf in the animation tab.
Our main task this week was to work only in the blocking phase. We started by planning out our poses and shot our own reference videos for accuracy. I chose a simple pose where the character steps from the left to the right. For the first frame, I posed the Walker leaning on its left hip, which helped me understand how the weight shifts left before moving right and then shifts again during the step. I used this principle to animate the weight shift.
To add realism, we adjusted the foot brake value to 100 and tweaked the foot roll and heel roll settings to perfect the Walker’s pose as needed.
Initially, I had some challenges with joint positioning and determining how much to bend the Walker in the anticipation pose. However, after reviewing my reference video and getting feedback from George on my blocking, I was able to improve the pose. We were also instructed to convert our blocking to splines the following week.
We were also asked to create three poses using references from either our sketches or the internet. For this, we used the ‘Ultimate Bony’ rigged character. I chose to make an action pose, a yoga pose, and a dance pose to add variety. This exercise taught me how to position different body parts like joints in the shoulders, hips, and knees to make the poses look natural.
It also helped me understand how each body part affects the others when creating a pose. Adjusting joint rotations and considering the angles helped me make each pose feel more dynamic and balanced.
Refining the Ball with Tail Blocking
This week, we continued with our work on the Ball with Tail animation, picking up from last week’s progress by focusing on converting our Block Out animations into Spline animations. We kicked off with a critique session, where we received initial feedback on our Block Out animations, helping me pinpoint areas for improvement.
Following the critique, we resumed our work and learned how to transform Block Out animations into Spline. After the conversion, we utilised the Graph Editor to refine the animations and correct the ball’s trajectory using the Motion Trail feature. This allowed us to make subtle adjustments to the ball’s path, enhancing the realism of the jump and making it look smoother than the blocking. I also learned to fine-tune the Translate Y graph in the Graph Editor, incorporating ease-in and ease-out effects to give the jump a more natural feel.
In terms of the tail animation, I made slight modifications in the Graph Editor to smooth out its movement. I also cleaned up on the rotations to make it follow the right curvature while it is in motion. We learned about managing keyframes, focusing on how to delete any extra keyframes at the end of the animation process. This keeps the Graph Editor neat and easy to use. It’s important to remove these extra keyframes only after completing the animation so that nothing changes while we’re still working.
This week, I adhered to the planning I developed last week and successfully converted my Block Out animation into Spline. By leveraging the Graph Editor, I was able to add ease-in and ease-out effects, while the Motion Trail helped me enhance the ball’s bounce distance and trajectory. I made several additional adjustments to ensure that the animation of the ball with the tail appeared more fluid and realistic. This is my version of Ball with Tail:
Planning & Animating a Ball with Tail in Maya
In week 3, we focused on Anticipation, a key principle in animation. I learned that anticipation serves as a mechanical buildup for force, which is essential for understanding that all movement is generated by forces—either external or internal. Anticipation effectively builds internal force to create dynamic motion.
We were advised to master foundational rules before deviating from them, which is crucial at this early stage of our animation journey. For the ball with tail animation, we observed videos of squirrels to understand how their tails react during movement and jumping. This helped us grasp the natural curve of the tail following the squirrel’s direction.
We were then taught the difference between Block Out and Spline:
Block Out:
Block Out is a foundational technique in animation that involves creating a rough version of the animation by establishing key positions (keyframes) for the main elements of the scene. The primary goals of the Block Out phase are to define the timing, spacing, and overall movement of the characters or objects without worrying about fine details.
Spline:
Once the Block Out phase is complete, the next step is to convert the rough animation into Spline. Spline animation refines the keyframes by smoothing out the motion curves, resulting in more fluid and natural movement. This allows for fine-tuning of acceleration and deceleration (easing), helping to create more realistic movements that mimic how objects and characters behave in the real world.
We learned that it’s generally more effective to push concepts like anticipation and squash & stretch too far initially and then refine them, rather than hesitating and making small adjustments. Anticipation is crucial for illustrating the strength and force behind movements, while squash and stretch are vital for enhancing the physical believability of actions.
For this task, I began by sketching out my initial ideas in 2D before moving on to animate in Maya based on that reference. Using the Block Out method helped me establish the starting positions necessary to get the ball moving. Although the animation was a bit choppy at first, I added extra keyframes to achieve a smoother flow.
Once the ball’s motion was established, I turned my attention to the tail. At the first keyframe, I positioned the tail as I envisioned it. As I continued, I rotated the tail into an ‘S’ curve, inspired by the natural movement I observed in the reference video. By setting keyframes and blocking the tail’s motion with each jump, I aimed to create a realistic effect.
After setting all the keyframes, the animation looked quite good as a preliminary step toward the final version. I’m now prepared for the next week, where we’ll learn how to convert this animation into Spline for a smoother and more refined appearance.