Some reference I found for horse

https://footage.framepool.com/en/shot/769440103-wooden-fence-gallopping-white-horse-strength

Week 4 Horse trot - Hierarchical approach to animating a cycle

These next few weeks are designed to help the student create a workflow for animating a cycle. Please follow the workflow given. We will be using a hierarchical approach where the movement is layered starting with the root, rather than a pose to pose approach where the key poses are created for all the nodes of the creature then inbetweened.

Animators will be asked to use reference, analyze it, and interpret as necessary to get a believable performance

The first step is to block out the major movement of the horse trot, starting with the up and down motion of the hips (horse_v2:ct_COG_CTRL). Before you do so, familiarize yourself with the horse trot reference posted above. Understanding the movement and mechanics of the horse trot is crucial. I often like to think as the hips and chest of the horse as two opposing bouncing balls. This helps me lock down the timing in the movement of these two areas. Once you have studied the live action reference, look at the thumbnail and hand-out reference. Keep in mind that this is someone's interpretation of the movement. Nothing replaces studying live action reference. Life is your best teacher. However looking at thumbnails, and someone else's analysis of the movement can help us understand the movement, and see something that we didn't notice was there before.

To Start:

start up maya

Create your maya project file

Copy file horse_v2.mb from student pickup to your work area

File->Project->Set your maya project file

reference the horse maya file

File -> create reference

horse_v2.mb

horse_v2:ct_COG_CTRL

STEP 1 :Get the up and down timing of the root

the keys are 1(down) 5(up) 9(down) 13(up)

On the other keys 3 7 11 15 the body is 1/3 closer to top keys 5 and 13

To slow down the cycle to 18 frames instead of 16, add 2 drawings

between 4 and 5 (up) and 12 and 13 (up)

new keys 1 (down) 6 (up) 10 (down) 15 (up)

and 19 is the same frame as 1

STEP 2 :Rough out the gestures for the feet placement, passing position and contact. Do the back legs first. These will be copied to the front legs.

TIPS : The springiness in the steps is from the ligaments in the foot of the horse.

Check the arcs and spacing of the joints on the foot and leg of the horse as the legs fold and stretch. Plot the arcs using a draw tool on the computer.

This illustration is from the Preston Blair book, showing how the legs fold up and stretch out with the body.

Homework: Block in the up and down movement of the body using the COG (root) node. Now rough in the movement of the legs under the body using the feet controllers. Use the circular controllers at the top of the leg, frontLeg_CTRL and rearLegCTRL to make the leg stretch and compress as it folds up and stretches out. TIP: If you have problems with the model using maya 11, then use an older version of maya. I suggest maya 10.0. Follow the reference, thumbnails, and illustrations given.

Tony's WIP

Before ----------------------------- After

I asked Tony to post this to the blog to show how important the root node is in keeping the characters alive. Even during a hold, there is some circular movement in the hips so that the character will sway back and forth, and up and down. Remember that life is your best teacher, so study your reference! I asked Tony to load his reference into the image plane, and track the motion of the root. The result is what you see on the 'after side'. Another observation Tony made was that moving the shoulders helped to give the rib cage a sense of compression (squash) and expansion (stretch), as the character moved from pose to pose. This gives a more natural feel to the poses. Lastly , after the root smoothing was established the waving arm gesture for 'It's Billy California' was delayed, slowed down and staged more in front of the character so that it would read better. Even though you are studying reference closely to understand the mechanics of movement, it is used as a reference and not copied exactly.

Horse TROT cycle

THIS WEEK :

COLLECT REFERENCE , create poses to get familiar with the horse model.

Finish Articulation of mouth for lip sync assignment, post 'FACE CAM' animations on the blog !

(5 seconds of your best lip sync from your work in progress)

Hi, my name is Irena and I took Linda's realistic animation class last year. This is a simple deer behavior I did for your viewing pleasure.

Introduction

Sep 05 - Sep 15

Notes

Students need to be ready to show samples of their previous animation.

Lecture/Demo

Discussion: Review of the 12 principles. What do they really mean and how do we apply them in 3d animation? Meet Morpheus and the tools.

Morpheus Rig 101 - "The Rig As Is" from Josh Burton on Vimeo.

Activity

Skills audit and review. Group discussion on animation assignments students have done so far in their time here. What assignments have you struggled to complete? Instructor will flag any missed assignments for review.

Assignment

Lip Sync. (LS) Modules 1-3. This is a relatively simple assignment, a quick 3-5 sec lip sync piece with one character. The purpose of the assignment is to give you a chance get warmed up with your rig of choice, and to let me get an assessment of your current skill level. We're actually doing this backwards from normal animation workflow, attacking the lip sync first! Featured principles: Posing, Timing, and Staging. 3-5 sec. long (72-120 fr). Students must pick a piece of dialogue and have all of the visemes done for next class. Review tutorial on vimeo.com/dlatour “Rough Lip Sync Demo.”

Rough Lip Sync Demo from David Latour on Vimeo.



LOOKING AT GUIDES DRAWN BY A GREAT ANIMATOR, SUCH AS PRESTON BLAIR CAN PROVIDE A USEFUL SIMPLE APPROACH TO PHONEMES. THE PHONEMES HAVE BEEN ANALYZED AND SIMPLIFIED. USE THIS AS A GUIDE WHEN CREATING YOUR OWN MOUTH SHAPES. ANIMATE THE LIP SYNC FOR NEXT CLASS.

Hint: Design mouth shapes that suit the personality of your character. If you pronounce the words distinctly while looking in the mirror, the mouth shapes will become apparent.

I also recommend creating a guide like the one below, with a picture of the mouth shape for each sound. Make a note of the frame numbers on your guide. This is a planning sheet for the animation, similar to a storyboard.

This is a simple assignment, no need to get too complicated!

Cartoon Animation Preston Blair

Cartoon Animation Preston Blair