Some Cool Thangs

Very nice little 3D illustration of the 12 Principles of Animation via Jennifer Harlow...

Ian Whitehouse also found a very swell demo of the 3D animation process from storyboard/animatic to block-in to finished render...

Walkin'

We'll take a look at these on Monday, April 28

3D Animation Project 3: Oberleutnant Dan

Behold, your next rig-- Lt. Dan! This time we've got legs and feet. . . and an optional tail. This time, we're doing walk and run cycles. Oh yes. Click here to download the Lieutenant Dan rig.
Lt. Dan and the bouncing ball rig were designed and built by Matt Ornstein! Props to him, I say!

Here's a 5 minute Miles video introducing the Lt. Dan rig:





Here's the link to the youtube page, if the embed video is lame.

For Monday, April 21 put Lt. Dan through some basic jumps. We'll start in on walks and runs on Wednesday, April 23.

3D Animation Project 2: Dualin' Ballz

SOU alum Steve Hammond shows how to get it done!

Take the ball rig, make a prop or two, and make an animation!
To ponder:

• Beginning, middle, end. 
• Character, deliberate action.
• Staging
• Poses... pose to pose with quick transitions
• Hold Keys
• Moving holds vs. static holds
• Not too much more than 5 seconds!

Rough Cut crit... Monday, April 13

Check out Steve Hammond's work!

3D Animation Project 1 ... Bouncing Ballz

Okay, here's PROJECT ONE: Create two loops of a bouncing ball.

• Create Loop One using a basic Maya primitive sphere.
• Create Loop Two using the Ball Rig. 
• Make a blog for your work if you don't already have one. Gimme the link...
• Render both animations (Playblast is fine) and post them to a web video service (vimeo, youtube, etc) and then yer blog. Make sure they loop at least 5 times!
• Due by Monday, April 7.
• To learn: Timeline, Graph Editor, Playblast, Timing, Spacing/Easing, Squash and Stretch, loop/cycles. See the previous two posts for the basics.

Here are the infamous Miles Maya intro videos that show you how to do the do. Work through these before Tuesday, and we'll pack our rags and go from there...

Loop One videos:

Loop Two videos:

And finally! Don't forget to get set up with yer free Maya download on your home computer. Make sure the version you download matches the lab version! And better yet, don't forget to send me an email about being a volunteer lab aid, because you know you want to do it. And it will be awesome. Cheerio...

Maya Animation Setup

You've got to do these things, folks!

On a mac, make sure you are using a 3-Button mouse!! Also if you are using one of those fancy mac mice with the lil' rubber ball as a scroll wheel make sure you set the preferences!!!
To do so, look at the upper left corner of your screen and click on ye olde Apple Icon Button and choose System Preferences...

Apple Icon  > System Preferences > Mouse:

In Maya, change your Menu set to Animation via the pull-down menu in the top left corner of the Maya interface:

Make sure to set your Time Slider Preferences, or your animation will not play back correctly!!

You'll want to get real cozy with the Graph Editor.
It's located under Windows > Animation Editors > Graph Editor
Remember to have the move tool (W) selected to move stuff around. Hold down shift to constrain horizontal and vertical.

Finally, use Playblast to test your animations and save them for upload to the web.

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