BA2: Animation Fundamentals

Extra Maya Notes

I have been pretty slack with my blog this term so I am going to write up everything I can now so that I can rest knowing it has been done. I am still in the process of doing my main bits of animation work, I have a successful ball animation which I feel shows clear squash & stretch to help the animation appear realistic. As far as a 1st animation goes, I am proud of it but I am sure ill do more work to it at a later date. I will post pictures and hopefully a rendered video of the bouncing ball soon also. 

As for Moom, well I have been having some technical issues which I believe are a mix of working on an out of date laptop and  not feeling 100% confident on the software quite yet but I will get there. I will post up work as it gets done (hopefully) along with videos and screen shots of how I am achieving what I am doing. 

For now, I will post up all the remaining notes I have on Maya and animation that I had been taking during the lectures and practical sessions over the last few weeks. 

How to set a project in Maya 

File > Project Window > name your project (in this case, we are naming our main project folder “charAnimation_walk/run/jump_jls) OR ballAnimation_jls)

Then, while Maya is open, go File > new scene “extra options” (small square icon) > real time 30fps >  charAnimation_walk_jls_000.mb

You must remember to reference your work by going File > create reference> select your rig from the main project folder (in this case, Moom & the ball should be listed under the “scenes” sub folder) > reference. 

Whenever you desire to change to animating a new object or work on a different animation simply choose “set project” under file and select the project you want to work with. Maya will now automatically direct you to this project, its main folder and all the sub folders you need regarding Maya. 

First Project in Maya

Following on from our maya inductions and researching into the different types of animations we were given a ball with a rig ready to be animated. Our task was to successfully animate the ball so that it bounced convincingly with the clear use of squash and stretch. Here is my attempt...

 

   I am pretty happy with the outcome of the bouncing ball animation. I think the squash and stretch works well and is not over used, I think the bounce itself is convincing enough to bring the ball to life with a believable bounce.