Through the camera settings I have imported the footage into 3D Equalizer project file. I changed the gamma settings to 2 and the soft clip settings to 1: there is more depth to the colour and the exr footage images are easier to control. I have used just 200 frames and started on frame 1. To play the footage in the software I exported the buffer compression file.

I then created two different folders for the point groups: one for the tracking points of the scene background and the second for the tracked point on the person head to then place and line up an object on it, in this case it will be an iron man helmet. The reason why there are two groups is for when I will calculate the scene the person moves differently from the background.

The lens settings for the camera the footage was shot with:

Once the camera data was fixed I started to track the camera points also with the help of the image controls

By changing the brightness and contrast options helped to find the right corners and sharp edges to place the tracking points.

This footage, compared to the one of last week, is flat. Even though is very still, I still needed to track the camera because there were some depths. The pattern of the point should never track a moving things otherwise it will more along and it won’t be accurate.

I order for the lens to bend properly, this digram on top is very useful for planning the position of the tracking points making the tracking more efficient by getting all the parts of the screen to divide it in quarters and areas especially for the “external parts. Getting points in all these areas is going to help forming the “fake lens” made in 3DE. If you don’t have points that goes all over you may get really fall out corners which is wrong. Tracked Points should be places to places with clear edges and no movement nor changing in either position or characteristics such as a corners. While tracking the points I have always checked the search area value that should have always been or “green” and if it turned to “red” while tracking I adjusted the patterns of the points. Moreover, while tracking the points, especially when tracking backwards (from the end of the footage), I made sure I ended the point.

To have points continuously going even though i did not know where they were I followed these steps:

If the shots are still there is no need to put points in the centre as there is no distortion of lens

When the tracking is done I calculated the points and the camera wouldn’t show anything since the camera constraints settings are wrong, they should be set as fixed camera position constrain giving all the points zero depth.

After I did a refinement stage with the deviation browser trying to delete big spiked with high values

The next operation is to open the Parameter Adjustment menu. First working with the focal lens for the setting I have set before in the lens settings and calculated the results after;

second step is lens distortion and after calculate

and after the quartic distortion and calculate after. If the number on top turns to zero it means that probably this step should be avoided as it means that nothing is moving, which is wrong.

If in the viewport one switch between f2 and f5 one can see the distortion created.

Next part is concerning the object tracking in the scene. I captured the guy face in the video to place an iron man helmet. The process of tracking the points is similar to the second part, but the points here are tracking the person face while it turns.

I first imported the 3d object model of the ironman helmet in the object points group.

I tracked constant patterns and defined areas of the face such as the hairline and avoid elements such as ears, hair and the glasses: the difficult aspect of this tracking is that the person at some point turns his head so while tracking I paid attention that the position of the points was constant throughout the footage since the 3d object I would have after placed on top should move along with the face.

I a new 3dE window set with 3D orientation control on one side and another 3dE window for the line up I have aligned the helmet with the face in particular with the tracked points with the survey data settings turned off.

Just like last week I have exported the scene in maya and did the run warp exporting the undistorted footage.

I have imported the helmet model again into Maya to create an animation with the helmet itself.

3D match moves

• First step was to import a sequence of frames using the Export buffer compression to play the footage into 3D Equalizer easier. 
• Confirming the position movement of the camera by tracking the scene
• Tracking the positional movement of objects (always track edges or carved corners)

In 3D Equaliser, for the whole footage, there has to be found as may point as it was possible so that the software will figure out all the depth by the way the points move away or towards the camera. We first track the points using tracking method of marker (forward and backwards) in the scene for the main areas of the footage making sure that they were ended, meaning that when tracked had a start and end frame depending on if they were in the scene or not, also checking if the green bar appearing while playing the footage when tracking the point did not turn red because that would mean that the point is moving too much and that the pattern of the point needed to be edited. Unique patterns had to b e found to understand where the point is on the footage. Though the centre 2D option the point can be zoomed in and out to better control them. Never track glass because it reflect light or water because it moves, the tracking won’t be accurate. The centre area of the point should always be in the frame. All the points at the end when calculating they will be in 3D space.

The white lines are every single frame that has been tracked and every red point is the keyframe of the camera there should not be gaps. At this point the 3D environment is already taking place: match move and layout are almost the same since you recreate the object.

In this step it also helped the image control to edit the contrast and the brightness in the colour control section of the frames to spot the right points to track the tracking points:

Once the foreground of the scene had been tracked the background of the scene was tracked too to make the 3D camera more accurate and not leaving any areas out of the tracking: it involved tracking point that comes in the scene and that come out again. For this part tracking the points backward by starting forward tracking and then changing the direction in the settings and tracking backwards by ending the point first, which was useful since that most of the involved area was in the last frames.

Once the tracking was done in Maya the geometry could be created helping with the points created in the scene which was useful to get as much information as possible.

After the points have been tracked, I was able to check the quality of those points in the deviation browser. The green line and number represent the average of all of the points, and the purple lines are all of the active points used for the calculation. The deviation of the camera should be under 1 but higher than 0 otherwise it means that there is no movement. If some points had spikes and peaks through the timeline weigh and the calculation result it could be fixed since it would feather the weight of the point. The goal was to make the green line smoother.

Next step is to open the Parameter Adjustment to find the curvature of the lens that were shot when shooting the film. The lens that we used is the following:

The pixel aspect always need to be one.

Another thing that will affect the point deviation is the lens attributes of the camera. To Recreate the camera curvature: add the film back hight and width from the camera in order to be able to recreate the Camera depth (see above) and where we add the recalculates after we tracked the different distortion of the lens.

The first is select the important attributes that will need to be changed : the focal length of the lens. I can allow the software to do this by changing it from fixed to adjust. Since the lens will also have some type of distortion

the pixel aspect should always set to 1

I have used the classic lens distortion model because is simple to use since you have only to work on:

quartic distortion moves the lens to the outside exaggerating the distortion and the distortion, the curvature of the lens, itself.

So to recap the footage should be considered as a sheet and all the point keep the sheet still and when working on the lens distortion the points will keep the footage “still”.

I then went to the 3DE4 tab and export the project to Maya: this creates a .mel file that I can then drag and drop into an empty Maya scene.

Before I export the matchmove to Maya, I will need to save an undistorted version of the sequence. This basically reverses the effect of the lens distortion depending upon the parameters that I calculated earlier. The footage has to be undistorted before it can be used in Maya otherwise the point would slide and positioned in the wrong places.

This is the part of the match move where the layout comes in. All of the locators in the Maya scene represent the 3D positions of the points from the 3DE track. The camera is also imported and is now a Maya camera that has keyframes to follow the path from the 3D Equalizer file. However, there isn’t any footage imported yet and you, therefore, can’t see where the points are in relation to that footage. I then middle dragged the camera on the left panel to create an image place in front of the camera that will stay in within the film gate as the camera moves to see where the points are in relation to the footage. Since the camera movement is now matched in 3D, any new objects in front of the camera will look as if it is on top of the original footage.To make the image move onto the next frame, I will tick use image sequence.

The camera movement is now matched in 3D, and, based on the point I have created for each area covered in 3Dequalizer, I have put some actual geometry into the scene according to the camera so that they will look as if they they are on top of the original footage.

In Animation having a good reference to use in order to create and inform your creative decisions and help lay the foundations for animating is very important especially for more complex body mechanics and performance-based animation using biped (human) characters.

The reference that coulee used can be found, gathered on the internet for instance, or recorded. they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

For Found, second hand videos the cons can be the low resolution since it might be an old video, it could have a wrong speed of the video which might be difficult to animate in maya leading to a mismatching frame rate between the footage and maya itself; the content might not be specific to what you are looking for. On the other hand it has some pros as well, such as featuring something that you might don’t have the skills to do, is more readily available and involves no shooting set up.

For personal, first hand videos the cons can be that not being a good actor could constitute a problem to match the requirements of the task; even not having the right equipment and tools or finding the place to record. Some pros, however could be that you have full directional control over what you may want to record and what you manage to shoot is unique content to the goal, it also helps producing multiple takes of the same recording and they might be stitched together for a better result.

An essential aspect of a reference is that it needs to capture real and actual forces which should not be fake or having people pretending. This could be archived by using appropriate objects and contact points and having the help of actors who have skills and being able to direct them to achieve the goal. Another element to pay attention to is the pixel quality of the video the frame rate (24-25-30 fps) – higher frame rates reduce motion blur, less motion blur leads to a more detailed action. Adding a timecode on the reference video to help matching maya’s frame rate to match your footage

This is the source reference footage for the ‘body mechanics’ and ‘advanced body mechanics’ challenges. Body mechanics a short action that involves how the body mechanically works with weight, balance, gravity and the 12 principles (a volleyball bump). Advanced body mechanics reference video and consequent animation should be an upscale of the first body mechanics and should show join motions (a volleyball smash).

The rig for these animation should be chosen following the requirements of the animation proposal and displaying rather simple controls.

The following are the audio clips for the performance task in the following weeks.

A method involving reference footage is rotoscoping which, in 2D Animation, meant to draw over footage which it could be the first place you start for your animation to make it more lifelike. However it may look uncanny, strange, since it does not add anything to it, is not exaggerated and it can undone quality, although it might be useful if used to some degree.

The first step was to add a time code using After Effects to the reference footage I have chosen to work with and export the footage in images to help creating the animation (rotoscoping). I after imported the character in Maya and created a camera and imported the image sequence in the camera. Next phases to roughly match the rig to the footage image. An animation method to be used could be involving stepped keyframes and after the animation is completed switch them back to curves. I have also created a character sets which helped me select all the rig controls at once and I achieved that with the script editor collecting all the script for the different controls together: I have created one for the overall controls and one for the spine. The rig had both IK (which connects movement and FK so I have decided that for my animation I would have kept IK for the legs and FK for the arms. Since is a volleyball animation I have also imported within the scene the ball used in week one and used a volleyball texture.

The first animation step consisted in rotoscoping the first pose, in my case I have started from the moment of when the person hits the ball and continued forward and backwards from there. I have chosen to potion the keyframes every 8 frames more or less and started to work on the rig starting form the centre of gravity and spine. The first block keyframes I did had a problem: the centre gravity controls were moving, since I only used the side via at first, and leg position where incorrect I added a camera for front view as well to correct it.

In order to visualise better my animation I have coloured the break downs in green to differentiate them from the main keys in red using a colour code and selecting them from the graph editor. I did not use the maya breakdown method because if I had to move any key for any reason it would have averaged out the position of the keys as well.

I have also added into the scene a volleyball and animated it according to the reference video: I have used the ball rig employed in week 1 to animate the bouncing ball and animated following those steps more or less. I first keyed the positions, added the rotation and all added the squash and stretch of the ball and added an initial casual position to add a natural effect to the overall animation. At first I had used the “common rigged ball” so I could not used that last element of the ball. I after imported the correct rig, the ultimate ball rig, so I could complete the animation.

This is the version of the animation with the correction applied to the character rig and the ball animation together.

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overlap and follow through, arcs

After my teacher cleaned up the character sets and reduced keyframes I worked on the feet position hand rig position and spine flex during the animation side to side and up and down.

Walks are the hardest things to animate well: walks can tell a whole story. Walks are full of personality character, animation problems, full of weight distribution, energy and flow (or lack of it). The key is breakdown a structure (the walk cycle) of a walk and work in order, figuring out the rhythm, where is the weight coming from and where is transferring to. There are all kinds of walks: everyone walks differently. So, is a diverse and complicated topic: everything from gender, physical size to emotions can alter a walk has to be put into a context.

The walk cycle elements are:

• Sticky foot contact, the feet slides backwards slightly but towards the end it moves forward.
• Raising and fall of the head level, which is a subtle element but crucial.
• While Animate there should be used 25 frames, for example, where the first and last frame are identical. However while we play the animation the 25th frame should not be played but should be used 24 frames.
• Weight shift: the body sway from side to side. There should be a counter pose of the shoulders and hips going in opposite directions, and also shoulders an legs.

This is a sketch representing the rough timing for different single steps within a walk or run.

In this week post I am going to use 12 frames a second to create a natural walk with two steps a second.

There are some elements that can upscale a walk cycle:

• Personification of emotions: is a useful exercise to try and convey specific emotions through a walk cycle. (e.g. happiness, sadness, however there are many words to express them so it is important to have a clear idea).
• Observation of reality through reference video and pictures: recording footage of a walk of a diverse set of people at different times.
• Story or role based (characterisation): the personality, the physique or skills of a character will define the walk. However, it depends also where is the story set.

Workshop

With a basic rig of a ball with legs I am going to create a simple walk cycle.

The rig controls:

The position control, used to make the character move forward once the basic mechanics of the walk are set.

Centre gravity control, to edit the pelvis movement and add the squash and stretch to the body. there is also the option to add a moustache to be animated to add character.

Feet control that also have the controls to move heel and toe.

Pole vectors that control the legs orientation.

The first sep of the Animation was to block the rough mechanics of the walk cycle. Saving the first pose and last (frames 1 and 25) with a step pose (one foot in front of each other) and an reverse pose (switching feet and balance of the pelvis, centre of gravity) around frame 13 via copying the copy over to make it symmetrical. At frame 7 the character is going to move slightly upwards and to establish the leg which is moving forward, which would be in the hair, and the leg which is going backward, which should be on the ground. Same process but reversed for frame 19. For this stage the side view was very useful to key the poses and in terms of copying them throughout the timeline the middle click and drag tool was very practical. When I preview the animation I only played 24 frames.

Next I added some pose in between (frame 4 and 10 and 16 and 22) to add some rhythm to the whole animation and see what I could add in terms of personality before the poses are cleaned up in the graph editor. At frame 4 and 16 (reversed) key the contact pose of the feet the foot dropping quicker and low the root control so that it catches his weight. At frame 10 and 22 (reversed) the character goes upwards and add a ball roll to made the leg bend to the contact leg. To give some some personality to the character, I accentuated the toe flop of the feet as it comes down or when the foot is coming up. At this point there is the mechanics of the walk.

Next step was to clean up the movement in the graph editor to achieve nice curves with no bumps in the animated keys and also create some slow in and out by adjusting the tangents for each translate or rotate in the axis.

In order to stop the knees to “pop” in the walk I edited the value for the leg Stretchiness in the feet controls, only in some poses (10, 22, 7 and 19 -slightly-). I created a down pose and up pose for the character squash and stretch to create a bounce for the walk. To add a bit of personality to the walk I have switched on the moustache controls and used them as secondary action and overlapping action to the walking by making them move up and down as the character bounces up and down. I also offset they movement for the overlap effect. In order to make it move forward I used some markers, locators, t mach the heel (first part of the cycle) and toe (second part of the cycle) of the feet to use as a guide to move the character forward in space using the translate z.

I finally added more steps by grabbing each control, copying them and paste and connect (adding the positions rather that just repeating them) them in the space of 100 frames.

This is the final output from both side and front views:

As an additional exercise I worked on an angry walk using another rig (from “Avatar the last airbander” Aang).

I first studied the rig and see which where the most suitable controls fro this walk. I after applied the notions gained from this week workshops and using them as a starting point.

The next step was to create the breakdowns in between the main frames to clear the movement and create a natural walk steps with all the controls of the rig: adjusting the feet controls the spine controls position and edit the expressions controls to make the character look angry, fed up, even adding a rotation and swing back and forth the arms (closer to the body and far from it alternating) in an accentuated way to highlight his angry mood and also rotating the hands as he proceeds into the walk. However, the first attempt resulted in a quite “stiff” animation since the spine was not curving enough and the centre pelvis of the character had do be animated to go up and down and rotate as well. So I work on this aspect and this is the result:

I after put the animation frame to 100 and and copy and paste connect the keyframes of the walk. I have also positioned the eyes aim control further down so that when the character walks the eyes would not move too much.

This week animation features the following principles: Overlap, Follow Through and Settle and Rest.

Overlap: connects things moving at different rates to each other.

Follow Through: the extra movement after stopping due to force.

Settle and Rest: which is not edwin the primary set of principles but it is part of the letters. It determines how things come to a natural stop after movement.

All animation, for both simple and complex characters, feature this basic breakdown especially if loose items are involved, such as tails: Leading action, which is the part of a character which drives the rest of the character to follow; a Secondary (following) action, that catches up with the primary.

As it happens for each principle it derives from an observational study carried in the “real world”. The human body presents overlapping actions and follow through movements, involving elements such as arms, legs, hands, feet which move at different rates to the movement of the torso and of the pelvis: when somebody moves is impossible to stop without an extra movement or coming to a natural stop. Typically the pelvis (root) will lead and the upper chest, head, neck, arms, legs, hands, feet, hair and clothing will consequentially play catch up to that primary movement.

Practical examples:

Overlap and Follow through

An animal tail such as the one of a squirrel. In this case the squirrel’s body dictates the movement of the tail creating overlapping actions (other overlapping action would be the arms and the legs too since they are moving at a different rate to the body). Moreover, the squirrel motion (leap) is dictated by the pelvis, the root. Which means that the tail will therefore follow through when the body will stop due to the force employed finding a natural rest. The tail while moving offset will alternate “c” curves to “s” curves.

Another example,e is the overlapping movement of a bear’s belly: it catches up with the leading action dictated by the bears root movement, this action is also called drag effect. So, when the bear stops his belly passes the stopping point of the root body following through that action.

Settle and Rest

In a character ending jump will be natural rest standing in a stationary neutral pose after applying a force and landing.

A notable example features the pendulum and the chain animations: they both feature a dissipation, pose to pose principle, arcs of the movement, slow in and slow out of the action, follow through and settle and rest. The chain, however is much more complex adding overlapping actions since each link moves at a different rate.

However, they are deceptively difficult: they should not have hard hits or sudden stopping leading to a natural swing and find a natural settle and rest without any vibrating stop.

Following this theory I am going to an animate a character with a body of a ball which also has a tail, overlapping the action of the main body.

The character rig present the following controls:

the ground control, which is non-keyable, to place the character in the scene before starting animating it. (the triangle at the bottom)

the translate and rotate controls of the character. (the circle around the body)

The squash and stretch controls )the circle on top of the character)

And the tail controls which can be separated to use individually. (the for squares around the tail)

Process:

The first step would be positioning the ball character into the space: moving it forward and up through the space of the scene and set all the keys. After the moment created is adjusted in the graphic editor using weighted tangents to shape the curves created by translating the ball in the “Y” axis so the it will spend more time in the air while jumping. The motion trail will help visualise the moment throughout the process.

The second step is the rotation of the ball while moving in the arcs of the movement in order to get the squash and stretch controls parallel to the arcs themselves (just like it happens in the bouncing ball animation).

After that the ball is squashed and stretched following the movement of the character

Once the animation of the ball is set the poses for the tail are created: an initial pose is set to add a natural touch and whip action for the tail when the character jumps is made. Throughout the movement I tried to focus on the tail curves that should create while moving (s and c curves): in the last few seconds of the animation I struggled to make the tail coming to a rest making the tail alternate between “c” and “s” curve shapes, since finding the correct order was hard to me.

As it is shown in the final animation, I tried to make the tail whip before the character reaches the ground. I made sure that the tail bits movement overlap to create a natural flow. In the graphic editor I polished the curves breaking the tangents and adjusting them to make them smoother.

In this second attempt I moved the second stone slightly to the right, making the character jump side to side: so the angle o the hop had to be edited and the tail movement too since it should flip from side to side as well in the opposite direction of the body and slightly delayed too compared to the body. I used the first animation as a starting point: I have first worked on the body making sure that in the first frame was tilted on the left to jump towards the side step on its right and when in the air starting tilting towards left so that when it reaches the ground would be already rotated towards the stone on its left (same thing next but opposite direction for the last jump). Regarding the tail I made it rotate in the y axis in the opposite direction of the one of the body and also made it rotate it with a slight delay too; moreover I have used the rotate z to emphasise the whip towards the side of the body in the whole animation. I also added a moment for the tail at the end so that it would follow the principle of follow through action, since it moves after that the body stops, and made it settle and rest with a natural flow.

At the end I also tried to work in the node editor to add to the stone a squash and stretch for when the character jumps on it. I used the node connection in order to maintain the volume of the stone when scaled in the y axis: I have added a normaliser node, that corrects any value, a node that puts the value to square root and one that divide the value into 1 and linked it back to the scale x and z of the object. I after animated the keys.

This is the final animation from different perspectives:

Posing a character can can express so many things: a personality, an action that is happening or about to happen, a mood that can reach the audience and all this just at one glance.For instance, if a character is too rigid, in the way is drawn (for 2D animation) or posed it may lead to a lifeless body, very unnatural; on the other hand, a character posing following a line of action may be more readable and interesting, allowing a stronger force of action: it all depends on the level of the dynamics it is intended to use. It is also a valuable tool for animators to help the narrative of the story develop. Every aspect of a pose is mordant from head to toe (detailed makes the difference): when a person is under the spotlight, it is easier to pick up the details, but this can also be used at the animator adage and used to lead the attention towards what they want.

What is that make a good pose so effective?

• If the character spine follows an arc, which could generally have either an “s” or “c” shape: must be appealing to look at (rhythm and flow, straight against curve).
• Have a counter pose: when the shoulders and the pelvis are twisted and tilted the opposite way to each other.
• Presence of balance of a motion (centre of gravity, which allows a character to retain its balance) making the pose work: a character’s pose tends to have one specific power centre that pulls or pushes a character, which often causes a curve in the line of action. 
• The spine should dictate the action and distribute the weight in the body (weight and gravity /mass and effort).
• the silhouette of the body (the negative and poise space that the character occupies) must be readable and represents its attitude and qualities.
• Details such as can and feet can help the balance and the dynamic of it.
• A pose should have the attitude, the personality and emotions of a character, it is almost a way of personifying words.
• Staging and storytelling: an animator must create poses to a camera.
• It must follow a common sense: it should feel natural and is not forced.
• conveys the action that a character is doing (what is being done): if you can’t convey correct physical forces in a single image, it won’t feel right in the moving pictures. 
• conveys his motivation (why it is being done).
• leads from one pose to another and tells the story without any in-betweens and annotations.

The Animator bust be some sort of actor himself: the emotional content makes the difference between ones technical skill and real art expression, ones must be emotionally involved with them, gesture and movements must feel sincere, convincing, clear and properly motivated.

In this following tasks I tried to recreate 6 different poses in maya (3 action poses and 3 natural/drama pauses) using a basic rigged character. I have uses 6 photograph references downloaded from seance stock, which is a very useful website for finding reference pictures for anatomy drawing or make studies over body poses. I have chosen from different ranges of poses and framed them for a camera. In some of them I have also modelled additional props to make the frame more readable. The final scenes were batch rendered with a “skidome” in the scene in maya.

I firstly carried a study over the reference pictures using the Procreate app, drawing on top of them their line of action, centre of gravity, balance and additional notes to make it easies for me to create the pose in maya with the rigged character:

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Using the edited pictures reference I have then worked on the character which presented the following controls:

Diagnostics: to understand what does not work in a pose:

Root control for centre gravity:

Hips rotating or positioning movement control:

Pole vector controls prevent the knees from flipping:

Foot controls:

Spine controls:

Shoulders and clavicles(to support the movement of the shoulders) controls:

Elbow, wrist, hand and fingers:

Head and neck controls:

When posing the first aspect to work on are the line of action and the centre of gravity and after there should be added all the details from there such as head, hips and spine. It is better to work on major controls first in order to have strong foundations for the pose and edit small controls after to complete and lead the pose to be more readable and credible.

The following pictures are the final pose.

For this pose the hard element to achieve was to frame the momentum of the jump having to find the centre of gravity and applying it to the hips angle.

Other than the position itself I feel that the whole mood that this pose is communicate is important for a good output: even if it is a subtle particular, the tilt of the head is essential to express a care free feeling. Emulating the hands position was challenging as well but creating some objects for the character to hold on to, just like in the reference picture, is essential to make them look as if they are actually grabbing something.

This dramatic pose is representing a moment of distress and pain of the character which is outlined by the position of the head facing the ground and the curve of the spine. The correct weight of the pose was complicated to emulate: posing the right arm as if part of the body was leaning on it and aligning the spine controls to achieve a slight curve of the back was challenging as well.

Foe this particular pose the arms positioning was difficult to replicate: the arm have to lean onto the stick behind the character neck as if part of their weight is applied to it. I also had to pay attention to the distribution of weight on the hips since part of the body weight is applied on its left side.

One important element of this pose was the “counter pose constituted by the opposite movement of the shoulders and hips and the one of the shoulders and the legs.

Achieving the correct balance of the pose was essential to make the it as readable and credible as possible. The shoulders position has to be evident so that it shows the effort of the arms holding the two objects.

Spline curves are a method to represent motion in Maya and they can be found and edited in the Graph Editor.

how do they work?

They represent changes in value over time.

as the curve travels to the right it means that is traveling during time and as the same curve decreases or increases means that is changing in value. However the up and down values do not indicate that that in the viewport the object is going up or down such as it happens for rotation values, but for translate y attributes there is a direct visual correlation to the viewport.

Splines and spacing

how changes in the spline curves affect the spacing of a motion?

the large it is the change in value the larger it would be the amount of movement and slight change in value lead to a small amount of movement and when the curve is horizontal the curve attribute would be still with no value changes.

Tangents types

tangents are handles around a key frame and are employed to adjust the curve’s angle and direction before and after the key. There can be found several Ganges types in maya and can be used as a starting point. Such as auto tangent function which adjust the key tangents automatically depending on their location: keys at the extremity are flat and transitional keys, where the curve is the same direction on both sides is smooth and as the keys are edited the tangents will automatically orient. When refining an animation though, is not used one type of tangents for all the keys but different type of tangents depending on the key. Spline tangents make a smooth transition between keys and don’t flatten out. Clamped tangents are similar to spline tangents but they will not overshoot on adjacent keys close in value. Linear tangents make a straight line from key to key and very sharp transition useful for when a ball hits the ground for instance. Flat tangents which make the tangent flat common to use at extremes keys and in transitional keys it will create a decrease in velocity. Stepped keys do not interpolate and will hold still until the next key frame creating a stair-like keys they are used for blocking in full animation. Plateau tangents don’t overshoot and flatten out extreme keys.

this is a chart of common uses for these tangents types:

Tangent handles

tangent handles help create any type of curve we want. There are two types of tangent handles: weighted and non-weighted (all the same length and have the same amount of influence on a curve). Usually the tangents handles are unified and move together, however if we use the break tangents button the handles become dashed moving independently. Weighted tangents have differed Ing length which depend on the distance in value between key frames.

advantages of handles:

• it helps shaping the curves

• scale the curve more accurately

• it can create sharp angles with fewer keys

Disadvantages of handles

• Have less control over larger spacing areas
• spacing can be affected by editing close keys

Reference book

Naas, P., n.d. How to cheat in Maya 2017.

Intro to Grouping, Constraining, Parenting, Node Connecting, Set Driven Key, Direct Connection (Connection Editor) & Expressions (Coding Connections)

Grouping lets you rotate, flip, move, or resize all shapes or objects at the same time as though they were a single shape or object. You can also change the attributes of all of the shapes in a group at one time, such as adding a shape fill or effect, or an effect to a picture.

Constraints let you constrain the position, orientation, or scale of an object to other objects. Further, with constraints you can impose specific limits on objects and automate animation processes. Is a relationship between two objects: the target object, the one who leads the movement, and the constrained, driven by the target object. There are several types of constraints that depend on the axis you need to constrain to the leading object: translation (point), rotation (orient) and scale – parent constraint is for both translation and rotation.

Parenting: as shown in the picture above Parenting connection in Maya involves a child, subordinate to the parent, and a parent. There is no group node and it takes an object and put it underneath the other object node.

Node connections:

Maya scenes are a visual representation of the node graph every object you create in maya is represented by a node or more. An “object”, such as a sphere, is built from several nodes: a creation node that records the options that created the sphere; a transform node that records how the object is moved, rotated, and scaled; and a shape node that stores the positions of the spheres control points. I have used a the node connection in week 2 to maintain the value of a steppingstone to animate its squash and stretch: I linked the object node to another node that I have used to correct the value, and to another that put the value to square root and the last one which divided the value into 1.

Set Driven key: a way to link one attribute to another in different nodes or the same node to optimise a rig or an animation strategy. With the Set Driven Key window, you can link objects so that one object’s attributes can drive or dictate the attributes of another object to perform ‘Condition based’ animations.

“Good examples” of animation -Focus on the practice of animation not the film/story. For example, does the character move incorrectly or unappealingly. Is the design aesthetic and performance of the character ‘odd/strange’ –

Walt Disney “Fantasia” (1940)

“Dance of the Hours“, showing the dance of the Hippos and the Alligators”

The characters seem weightless, the animators adjusted the physics of their action to their need: the hippos had to be elegant and classy as if they were real-life ballerinas. Their movement is harmonious and appealing, there is no dialogue but the personality and emotions of the dancers are clear to the audience.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

These two extracts from this classic masterpiece effectively depicts the use of visuals and music merged together to create a unique experience, where the storytelling “speaks” its emotions by itself addressing directly to the audience building a dialogue with them as well.

“The cooking scene” from “Ratatouille” (2007)

This particular action of the film is the first where we actually see Remi, the main character, cooking. The secondary actions in this scene, and throughout the whole movie, for ears and tale are the fine touch to make the character coherent. Moreover, the audience can also perceive the effort of how he manages to cook in a non-animal cooking environment where everything is bigger and different to reach and the. The body weight seems to increasingly loose its realistic effects with the crescendo of the intensity of the scene when he is inspired to cook something, for example when he jumps over the saucepan to put the ingredients inside. Moreover also in this extract music and action are perfectly merged and create a totally immersive atmosphere.

Merida archery scene – Brave

The realism obtained for the hair movements of this character throughout the whole movie (following the secondary action principle) constitutes a perfect example of seamless accuracy applied to animation. Also the cinematic effects when the young princess throws the bow are highly realistic and freeze the movement of the arrow yet maintaining a complete feeling of dynamism.

“Bad examples” of animation

Reference footage is usually filmed for most animated movies to give the animators a sense of what the characters should look/move like in general and for anatomy and positioning purposes but directly tracing over footage for most people in the industry would not be the right choice.

“Anastasia” (1997) the “real princess” scene

Most animation of this movie was rotoscoped (live action reference footage was filmed and the animators just directly traced over the person and their movement) which can look a little disturbing compared to what people are usually familiar: it generally doesn’t have the stylised, squash and stretch style of animation that everyone is used to and tends to be more fluid.

“Pinocchio” (1940) scene “Am I a real boy?”

If we compare the Blue Fairy (who was rotoscoped) to Pinocchio (who wasn’t), there’s a huge difference in the way they both were animated: If you look at the Fairy’s wings they move and bend like the plastic ones: in the reference footage the actress must have been wearing stiff rather than something more fitting and cartoonish.

This animation encaptures the principles of Animation: slow in & slow out in the peaks, squash & stretch when the ball performs, the arcs which help visualise the movement, timing and spacing which determines the numbers of frames you are animating on and it differs depending on the spacing and the distribution of the keyframes. Moreover the bouncing ball rhythm can appear in other areas such as character walks (when the character goes up and down as it walks) or when it runs down the stairs. It can be used to test an animator animation skills.

Two famous versions and interpretations of the bouncing ball animation are:

• Preston Blair Bouncing ball, which appears to have more “inner life”.
• Richard Williams Bouncing ball, which compared to the previous one, has an extra pose leading to a more fluid animation.

In order to recreate an “illusion of life”, the Decay (dissipation) of energy & momentum over time are elements to be considered when animation, since the ball will eventually comes to rest on the floor after the several bounces and the consequent lost of energy.

These are the aspects of the bouncing ball decay animation to keep in mind in order to imitate the physics of the real world:

• Decay of height (bounce) – approximately 1/4 to1/5 each bounce.
• Decay of spacing (time) – the frames get less and less each bounce (one less each time).
• Rotation – which is the spin of the ball.
• Squash & stretch (scale) – in each peak it gets less and less.
• Trajectory and reaction angle – contact with the surface it bounces on.

There can be two approaches to this type of animation:

• Uneven bounce (e.g. 9 | 8 frame distance) – typical of a cartoonish approach, looking more alive.
• Even bounce (e.g. 9 | 9 frame distance) – which resembles more real physics, looking more passive.

The Trajectory is a really important element which helps animators flow the Arcs of the movement. Is influenced by the materiality and complexity of the ball and the surroundings. The Materiality refers to the different ball type (material) which leads to a different dissipation and also to different surfaces leading to a different reaction. In other words it deal with the third law of motion: the law of action and reaction.

Here follows a practical example of the Bouncing Ball with Travel animation and its process:

The ball rig:

The question mark groups all the preferences for the ball: the moment of the ball (the cycle that splits it in two), squash and stretch controls (at the top), the “antennas” which add an angle the morph of the ball (at the top), start position control (to add real effect).

The ball bonces with an even bounce approach:

The approach to animation is to work on different levels considering the complexity of the rig which is actually helping the animator making easier to save different keys while animating. Throughout the animation the most important tools to help create it were: timeline (a window into the overall animation of the scene) , graph editor (graphic representation of the animation), and keyframes (keys, a marker used to specify an object’s position and attributes at a given point in time).

The first aspect to consider is the “positioning” of the ball, the different locations where the ball will be throughout the animation (translate y, hight, and z, length), for this reason there should be only the positioning controls: the fist axis to work on is the “y”. Once the keys are saved, in the graphic editor the tangents should be broken to help create nice curves to achieve good arcs. The bounces should be 1/5 less each time it bounces with 1 frame less between peaks each time.

Secondly, the ball is made travel across the scene using the “z” axis: with the help of an editable motion trail the ball now bounces forward. In the graphic editor linear curves have to be created to take away the energy in the ball, otherwise it seems like it is hooping.

After that the squash and stretch controls are switched on again with the angle controls too: the angle should be parallel to z and perpendicular to y when it reacher the peaks in the air and the other way around when it reaches the peaks on the ground: so that only one control is used to squash and stretch the ball. 90 degrees each time are added in the “rotate x” by adding ). The squash and stretch is created and dissipated each time it bounces.

Next step is rotation: the ball rotation when it bounces it should be approximately 180 degrees rotation per each bounce. After in the graphic editor the curve on the graphic is adjusted to create a natural rotation.

Afterwards a slight slide is added at the end of the bounce since it had lost energy, which adds a real factor to the animation.

the last step is to choose a “messy” starting pose for the first frame to add a natural effect.

Final animation:

Challenge 2: Bouncing Ball Obstacle Course

Next task will be to build an obstacle course and animate a bouncing ball navigating its way through it. For this particular animation a “cartoon physics” world inspired the bouncing ball animation dynamic.

I have started with planning the animation by creating a visual process in 2D using Procreate, an app which has an Animation assist option to easily create frames to draw in with options such as choosing the frames per second (24) and picking the onion skin opacity to follow the movement. As showed in the animation below, the ball bounces the first time with much more energy and in the next three bounces the energy decays (following the third law of motion). The last part involves the ball, after the last bounce rolling down toward the semicircle acquiring more energy while rolling to one end but dissipating its energy as the rolling progresses back and force until eventually coming to rest in the middle of the semicircle.

When first saving the keys I have opted for an uneven bounce approach, since that is typical of a cartoonish approach, in which the ball looks more alive. The process I have employed is the following:

I have worked on the movement and positioning of the ball making its way through the obstacle; so I switched off the other control leaving the position control on and saved the keys for both the”y” and “z” axis helping with the motion trail to visualise the movement. Once the main keyframes where positioned and some in-betweens were created, I have worked on the graphic editor curves since the arcs of the movement where not completely defined.

The graphic editor was very useful in this process: following the motion trail I broke the tangents of the “translate y” to create nicer curves and spline the “translate z” in the editor to make a more natural feel to the animation.

After the movement positions where sorted, I edited the angle controls for the squash and stretch controls to so that the angle of the ball followed the arc of the movement. Moreover, when the ball bounces the two controls alternate throughout the animation allowing me to just use one of the to squash the ball. I then used the squash and stretch controls and edit them according to the bounces and the decay of energy of the ball (adjusting the angle too): the first bounce when the ball jump on the surface will be the one with more squash and this energy is going to dissipate over time. Just after the last bounce when it fall over the rotating surface, the ball would loose some energy but acquire a bit more as it roles over the semicircle: so I added a slight squash which get less and less with the rolling of the ball until it stops.

As the ball proceeds into the obstacle it rotates. The next step was the rotation, I first set the first and last keys in the animation where the rotation was zero. After I set a second keyframe when it bounces the first time to use it as frame of reference to locate the last keyframe on the graphic editor. The last step was to add more rotation for the last few frames when the ball roles on the semicircle: it first roles onward, then it reaches the peak, then it roles backward and onward again and so forth until it comes to a rest. (In the first attempt I made for the last rotation animation I made the mistake of inverting the direction of the rolling, but eventually I figured that out and fixed it).

The last part of the process was to check the overall animation and finessing everything. To add a more natural effect I edited the first position of the ball so that the overall movement throughout the animation would result less calculated.

This is the last result:

The first render using playblast.

After I actually polished the motion track since that some cur verve were not exactly smooth with defined arcs.

This is the last rendered video which I first rendered with bach render adding a skydive and direct lightingn and after I merged the output images in a sequence in After effects.