Final Reel
- video presentations for animation fundamentals Link
In this term, I learned a basic understanding of animation, which can be important to learn from the fundamentals. The 12 principles of animation are so helpful when I make a character animation or even motion graphics; they can be applied to many animation projects and polish up the animation with a few key ideas. For the study of the 12 principles of animation, I make another page to record it for easy review in the future as a tool kit for myself.
In the lessons of Animation Fundamentals, I learned a lot about how to make a character move smoothly from the feedback and critiques of the tutor. At the beginning of the class, we learned that all animations are based on a bouncing ball. It is a refreshing idea for me and I found out it is true for every type of animation. Since I got a passion for motion graphics, I applied them to other projects and it really changed the dynamic of the animation.
In the lesson, there were many tips that the tutor gave us as we were practicing. For example, before making animation, plan first! Because planning can help us grab the whole structure and timing of how a character will move which will be more efficient for the process of producing animation. As for the skills of MAYA, I would say I learned basic functions of it but it is good enough to make a character move smoothly. So far, the most useful function might be the motion tracking of MAYA; it is like a hidden helper to offer animators a way to observe how the object’s position moves. Interestingly, when a character walks in a loop, the curve of the motion movement will be an 8 shape in reality.
Another important concept I learned in this lesson is to observe from reality. Every assignment we did referred to humans or animals, and it is very helpful to know how objects move by observing instead of copying other animated works because we won’t learn the basic idea of physical movement behind natural things.
Overall, it is a good lesson full of practical skills. The basic concept of fundamental animation can be used in future works to enhance our technique of animating a character naturally. Especially for the idea of ‘follow through’, I like it the most haha since it can easily make an object move dynamically.
This is the end of my recording of notes in this lesson.
Thank you !!!
-> 2023 07 Dec. Week10
Spline animation
In this practice, I make adjustments according to the feedback from the tutor. I found it challenging to control the timing of when to jump and bend down. The observation of myself is not so natural haha maybe it is my bad body language.
I know we need to make animation exaggerated based on the 12 principles of animation. It took me much time to get the timing!
-> 2023 30 NOV. Week9
Post Planning and Blocking
Through this practice, I recorded myself as a pose-to-pose reference. It is a simple pose with 2 movements. One is walking and one is jumping. Yeah, by this assignment to work on two tasks at the same time. For the feedback from the tutor, it is a key point to learn to control the timing of animation. For blocking, it is good to know when is going to jump and observe the legs’ movements.
The most interesting thing is humans can’t move two legs or arms at the exact same time. Therefore, to make the animation look natural, we need to adjust the position of the legs and arms to make sure they do not move in the same position because it will look like a robots.
-> 2023 17-23 NOV. Week8
Walk Cycle spline
This week, I am working on how to animate a walker with smooth movement.
Apart from the position of the body from left to right, we need to pay attention to the weight shift. With the assistance of a track line in MAYA, we can easily adjust the curve of the body movement and animate it objectively.
