Animation Progress!

 Guess who's back?

This crazy gal!

I've been working on some animations that I really really REALLY wanted to share with you! 

None of them are perfect, but I just wanted to have a nice place where all these come together and you can sit by a campfire, picture of a campfire, or campfire scented candle and take them all in. 

I have a lot to learn. I knew that when I started, especially as a 2D and traditional animator. But I've already learned a lot in my two (2!!!) months here. I am doing this as a reminder to myself that I CAN learn these programs. I just need to consistently practice. And develop self-confidence. In any particular order. 

I have a lot to learn about rigging and naming conventions and Maya, oh my, but I will keep on truckin'. Speaking of truckin'. I will also present you with this to start off this wild ride...

Guess who finally learned to render in Maya while retaining a slight semblance of quality? Me! Too bad it doesn't render in 1080p or above, but this will definitely do! 

I didn't change anything about this animation since my portfolio. I'm going to go back to it when I learn a bit more about rigging. The truck is not rigged whatsoever, hence why it looks like it's sliding. Since I made this animation in my first week at FIEA, I had no idea rigging was even a thing. I just thought animation was me taking parts of a thing and moving them around like magic.

Well, that's at least how my 2D animator brain tries to perceive it. 

But, onto some of my NEW stuff! And you heard me... NEW! I have been hard at work trying to learn fundamentals, which includes walking. Between that, MOCAP workshops, and other awesome feedback opportunities, I have been busy improving my craft. Hopefully!

And that reminds me. RPP has also been a newfound source of animation. I'll show those after I show some portfolio progress. As a reminder, none of this is definitively on my portfolio. Yet. I'm still getting a feel for animating in Maya, after all. I've only done a handful of 3D animations at this point, so none of these are necessarily gold-tier works of art. Not yet anyway!

Okay, enough rambling. You can tell it's late. Have some animated goodness! 

Here is my current iteration for a walk cycle project. I'm not done with it, but I'm slowly chipping away at it and adding more bounce and influence from traditional animation. He needs to look more alive, but I'll post here when I give him more life. 

Here we see our friend Boney might have had a few drinks before showing up to my blog. He's moving and swaying a tad, which makes him look drunk! Pretty funny for my first walk attempt with Mr. Boney, huh?

This character was actually what I was going to use for my walk cycle project, but the rig is just too janky at the current moment. It's a character from Balan Wonderworld and it came from a site online. I'm surprised it works, honestly. I just wanna make her move better because she is just so cute! 

She moves a bit better in this one, but then the model itself started to deform. Most likely since this is not a really great rig. I will probably end up rerigging it somehow. And maybe adding controls to make it easier to move. Because for now, I've been individually moving every joint. Hence why I only did half of the walk cycle in both of these... I wanted to test the limits and this rig didn't pass. Which is a shame because the character is just so dang cute! I'll keep working on her in the background as I continue with other projects. You'll see an update here if I can get her to move organically! 

Speaking of limits, here's her range of motion. This is essentially me moving the model like a madman to show people where the model's limits are. So, in a team setting, this would be helpful for a protagonist character, so the entire project team can be completely aware of what is or isn't possible. But, it sure does look crazy, doesn't it?

I will also post some cool RPP things that you may like. I know I like them! This RPP project is the first one that I've had to do 3D animation for... all my other projects were 2D. So it's been weird and very alien to learn all this jazz. But I'm trying, which is all that matters! 

First order of business... Hand Rigging. I've never rigged before, at least not successfully, so this was crazy! From weight painting to parenting... I did the whole nine yards. It ain't a perfect rig, but at least it moves! 

Let's check out that sweet motion! 

As you can see, it's not perfect, but I'm proud of it! I have literally never even MODELLED a hand, so I'm happy that my little proxy geometry resembles one at all. I gotta do something with the joints, but I will figure it out later! 

And here's another animation from that project for you! It's a beautiful butterfly! 

This beautiful proxy was made by Levi... Thank you Levi! Levi made an even better game-ready model, which I'm excited to get into! 

I'm not super-proud of the rig I did for this, as it was my first ever rig. So, I just did the head, thorax, abdomen and two joints each for the wings. I'll show a more dynamic rig when I have something to show.

But those are my animations for now! 

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my process! I'll try to update this as I continue to practice, practice, practice!