Jump

This assignment concerns the "jump" action. Your jump can be of any sort, but I want you to keep it simple: that means no running, no jumping off of cliffs, no crazy ninja backflips. Just a jump. Straight up, forward, backward, with skill or clumsily, for joy or in surprise, but just a standing jump + landing.

Almost every type of action we can classify as a "jump" shows certain shared key movements, or "beats". These are described as:

Rest 1

This is your starting pose. It's not very complex, but it's necessary to begin your animation this way. I suggest paying attention to where your feet are in the rest pose so that you don't have to shift them to get into...

Compression 1
This is the "squash" part of our jump / bouncing ball analogy. Depending on the type of jump you are doing, this pose may be very exaggerated like mine, or it may be quite subtle, such as a simple bend of the knees and shift of the arms.

Extension (optional)
This is the "stretch" part of our jump / bouncing ball analogy. Keep in mind that the extension doesn't necessarily include the whole body; you're not stretching your character out on the rack. Power for a jump comes from the toes, up through the legs, into the hips, and out through the torso. The arms are there primarily to aid in generating momentum / balance, even in a small or clumsy jump. I label this pose as "optional" because if you are doing a smaller jump, the extension pose may be easily confused with the...

Float

The float pose comes at the very top of the jump, when your character's momentum has reached equilibrium with gravity. A high, athletic jump like mine has a very pronounced float, in which my character is reaching for something, so his arms are at their highest point here. A more subtle jump may not do much with this pose, but you need to describe the height of the jump somehow.

Contact (optional)
This is the moment of impact after a high jump, when the character is searching for balance right before landing. The primary use for this pose is in determining body position before the legs take on weight again, but it is also optional because in a smaller jump the character might have a very soft landing and fall straight into...

Compression 2
The second compression will almost certainly be weaker than the first, just like the second squash on a bouncing ball, which has lost some of its energy from the first bounce. Balance is the main thing to decide here: does your character fall over after landing? Sprain her/his ankle? Spring back into another jump? Pose triumphantly? The resulting angle of descent between the float and compression 2 poses determines what happens next in the...

Rebound

This pose may be barely noticeable if your jump is very low, but it is absolutely essential. Also, called a "settle" sometimes, this pose gives the necessary reciprocation after compression 2. Without it, your landing will feel weak or outright false.

Rest 2
Finally, a return to rest. You need this just to close off your animation. In a more complex action, this pose might not happen: the character might jump again or run off screen, or who knows what else. But none of those are options for you this week, so keep it simple and let him rest at the end!

For the reference we used in class, see this youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXKCiaJsn8Q

Or to download a higher quality copy, try this link:

http://www.jedmitchell.com/jump_ref.mp4

If you are doing a less athletic jump, or a different style, get some more reference, youtube is full of the stuff! I applaud originality, but while you are still learning the ropes, reference can make the difference between pass and fail, so go find some! Or shoot some yourself. Or draw it. However you do it, go out and study some jumps before getting started on this assignment. Research up front will make a world of difference in the end.

By Monday, I would like you to have a new project directory to give me, with at least 6 poses (the extension and contact poses may not be necessary if you are doing a lower or less athletic jump) in your scene file.

Finishing the Walk Cycle

Completing your basic walk cycle will entail two main ideas:

• Checking the timing and spacing of your key poses.
• Adding detail, called "secondary" motion.

You saw me work on #1 a bit in class on Monday, but because of the snowday on Wednesday you didn't get the full demonstration, nor have you seen the process for adding secondary motion to your walk. I will try to explain #1 as clearly as possible here, and if you can begin working out that point, we can address #2 in class on Tuesday, where we will finish this assignment together.

1.) Check Timing and Spacing:
You are trying to get any "kinks" out of the motion in your character here. The primary ones to look for are in the speed of the foot as it slides backward on our invisible "treadmill," the foot's angle as it slides, the height and rate of rotation in the hips, and the rate of rotation of the shoulders. Let's go through these one by one.

Motion of the Feet:
Upon landing in the Contact pose, the heel of the foot should move at a basically constant velocity until it lifts off the ground at the following Down pose. Look at the Translate Z axis in your Graph Editor for each foot. If you don't have a basically linear graph while that foot is on the ground, adjust it until the motion is constant.

Also pay close attention to the Translate X axis for each foot. While it is on the ground it may rotate slightly from the ball of the foot, but it will not slide left-to-right in a significant way until it leaves the ground:


Motion of the Hips:
The hips should be moving pretty smoothly, both in translation and rotation. The side-to-side and left-to-right torque of the hips may not form a perfect sine curve in the Graph Editor, but it will probably be close to one. Look at your Rotate Y and Rotate X channels in the Graph Editor. REMEMBER that on this rig, it is easiest to animate hip rotation on the Spine_Pelvis_IK control and hip translation on the Upper_Body control.

For the motion of the hips, pay special attention to the Translate Y channel of your Upper_Body control. This character has some odd proportions, so you may experience him "bottoming out" on the down pose very sharply, like what I showed you in class with my example. To fix this, you need to slightly raise the Contact pose and lower the Down pose until the motion is smoother. If you find yourself needing to raise / lower the hips in the Contact pose, remember to pay attention to the angle of the leading knee and adjust the leading foot position to keep that knee almost straight.

Bear in mind that the Rotate Z of your Spine_Pelvis_IK control should reflect the balance of your walk. As your character lifts one foot, weight transfers to the planted foot and the hips both rotate and translate to accommodate this weight shift. As the body moves towards the side with the planted foot, the hips will rotate accordingly, tilting the highest towards the planted side on the Passing pose:


Motion of the Shoulders:
The shoulders should rotate in the opposite direction as the hips, both on the Rotate Y and Rotate Z axes. Remember the concept of contrapposto:


2.) Add Details (Secondary Motion):
This section we'll deal with together in class on Tuesday. It involves delaying the motion of certain body parts, like the arms, and adding extra keyframes to places like the feet and hands to give them an extra little something which really makes the animation come alive.

So, what I'd like you to shoot for this weekend is a semi-complete walk cycle, not just poses. Follow the examples I gave in class and here on the blog in these instructions and see what you can come up with. When we meet on Tuesday we'll bring it all together into a finished piece. You don't need to submit anything before class this time -- just get as far along as you can, and email me with questions!

Walk Poses

You all received your assignment in class on Wednesday, but as a written reminder for anyone who wants it, these are the specifics:

• Create the 8 poses of a basic, mechanical walk cycle (r.contact, down, passing, up, l. contact, down, passing, up, as documented in the "walks.pdf" handout you all received via email) using the male or male_V rigs provided here on the blog.
• The walk should be "in place," as though happening on a treadmill.
• Use Stepped Keys for your keyframe tangents so that the poses are not interpolating between frames (remember that you can set this as your default type in Windows --> Settings/Preferences --> Preferences --> Animation).
• Focus on the motion from the side view of your walk.
• You are not required to add any motion to the hands for this assignment.

Remember to use REFERENCING and the PROJECT directory system. I'm not taking points off for this yet, but I will be soon. Archive your project directory and mail it to me before class on Monday, or hand it in that morning via thumbdrive, etc (I carry one if you need to borrow it).

Your New Best Friend

In advance of your walk-cycle-poses assignment, I am posting this character file for you to begin experimenting with. He comes in two flavors, hero and villain. I leave the symbolic color coding up to you.

(Right click an image and Save As to download the corresponding file.)

A few basics about this rig: Red controls are IK and Blue controls are FK. Many of the controls are more complex than the basic Translate / Rotate / Scale channels, so look in the Channel Box for custom attributes. To use them, either type in new numbers or select the number then click + drag your Middle Mouse Button in the view pane to use that channel as a Virtual Slider. Don't worry about the assignment at first: just go nuts with the rig until it starts to make sense. Enjoy!

Two Bouncing Balls

Your first assignment for the semester is something of a warmup. You'll be animating two bouncing balls of differing weights and sizes interacting. "Interacting" can be taken to mean either physically touching one another in motion or both hitting another movable prop in motion, like the see-saw I showed you in class today, or knocking over columns, or walls, or other props. If you are unsure of how a ball would bounce, look for references! You must have access to at least one tennis / base / bouncy / bowling ball, or some time to search around on Youtube. A little reference can go a long way in this assignment.

Try to use the "blocking" / "layout" method I showed you for this assignment: focus on setting the most basic keyframes for all objects first (S to set a key on all attributes simultaneously), without worrying so much about their timing or the quality of their motion. Just try to get a plan laid out in advance. Once all the elements are represented, you can go back and begin changing your timing by dragging keyframes around in the graph editor (middle mouse button with the Translate Tool active) and adding additional layers of motion like squash / stretch and roll.

Shoot for a total length of between 3 and 6 seconds for this assignment. That means at 24 frames per second you would have a total run time of between 72 and 144 frames, but probably much closer to 72. This is just a suggested length though, not a rule. Adjust your time sliders accordingly when you begin blocking your animation.

Remember to use the Referencing system and Project Folder organization we've talked about in class. The previous two posts on this blog cover those in more detail if you've forgotten anything.

When you're all finished with your animation, archive your project folder with all the scene files in it. It shouldn't be over a megabyte or two, so attach it to an email and get it to me before class on Monday.

Referencing!

For most of the projects this semester you won't be animating directly in the file where your characters / props / whatever were created. You'll be animating in a new file which will contain references to all your assets.

To make this happen, open up a fresh scene in Maya. Save it to your project/scenes directory with a descriptive name (something including "animation" or "anim" is a helpful way to distinguish it from a "rig" or "model" file), then go to File --> Create Reference... Find the file where you created and rigged whatever asset you are animating (a bouncing ball, a character, etc), and select it. Press Reference.


Viola! Your character appears in your new scene file, ready to go. The original file, however, is preserved intact and when you modify it in the future (painting weights, adding textures, adding more controls, etc) your animation file will automatically update!

Happy hunting.

Project Mangement!

Maya utilizes a particular "project" directory system to help you keep things organized. It's a great help when you start working with multiple files on a project and we'll be using it throughout the semester to stay organized.

In Maya, to create a project for your work go to the File menu --> Project --> New... A dialog will appear with a number of text fields for you to enter. Here you can determine the names of directories within your project and tell Maya where to store files of a given type by default. I recommend that, instead of entering any of your own directory names you simply press the Use Default button at the bottom of the dialog. Notice that Maya fills in all those text fields for you now, greatly simplifying the process.


Now enter a name for your project in the uppermost field. Feel free to use whatever name you would like, but try to make it descriptive, like "jed_assignment_1" or "jed_ball-bounces" or something. Putting your name in the title is a great way to keep me from losing your files. Finally, choose a location for your project by pressing the Browse... button and save it to wherever you like.

However you choose to name things, when you have a working project directory you should be able to save files to it. By default now when you save a file it will go to your project/scenes directory. Very convenient! When you sit down at a new computer though, Maya won't necessarily know what project it should be working within, so you'll have to tell it. From now on, every time you open a copy of Maya for the first time that day you should go to the File --> Project --> Set... command and choose your project directory from the browser dialog which pops up to point Maya in the direction of your files.

When you submit files to me after this you'll want to make a .zip copy of the entire project directory.