Introduction: If you completed the last animation exercise, you should a 6 – 8 drawings of a figure in poses that express certain emotions. Now, let’s bring these images into a CG program (the program we are using in this course is Maya). By creating the drawings first in the last exercise, you were forced to think about how emotion was expressed in the figure, and not the computer. Now that you are familiar with the emotion in your figures, we can now begin to integrate the computer in all of this.
In this exercise, you will be taking your drawings from the last assignment, and you will pose your CG models to match your drawings. This will not only give you practice in posing your CG characters on the computer by manipulating the controls of the rig, but you will see the importance of these poses in their ability to express effective emotions. Once this exercise is completed, save it as we will add to it to improve your emotion animation skills in the next exercise.
Before we begin, be sure to download and explore a few free character rigs found on the internet. You can start from my blog entry below, I’ve reviewed and tested a few character rigs posted on Highend3D site. Do this before proceeding with the assignment. Good luck and have fun!
Free Character Rigs
Assignment Description:
Use the drawings you created in the last assignment (Emotion Animation Ex. 4) and on the computer, pose your character rig to match the poses in your lifedrawings. Do as many as you wish, but strive to do a minimum of 6 – 8 poses. Or, if you wish, an alternative would be to model a CG character in the way I have shown you up above. This is fine, but as part of your training, use a drawing that you've created in order to get the full benefit of the lesson.
Use the drawings you created in the last assignment (Emotion Animation Ex. 4) and on the computer, pose your character rig to match the poses in your lifedrawings. Do as many as you wish, but strive to do a minimum of 6 – 8 poses. Or, if you wish, an alternative would be to model a CG character in the way I have shown you up above. This is fine, but as part of your training, use a drawing that you've created in order to get the full benefit of the lesson.
Posing Assignment I from randolfd on Vimeo.
Competencies:
By the end of this exercise, the student should be able to
- Explore general controls found in free character rigs.
- Pose CG characters in emotive poses.
- Become familiar with the posing process by using reference.
- Generate poses by using proper keyframing techniques.
CG Posing Process:
Below is a link to a video tutorial that walks you through a process on how to pose a character by "bookending" the keyframes. It also covers how to use the Maya script editor.
http://www.randolfdimalanta.com/tutorials/bookending/index.html
Tips:
In teaching this exercise and in sitting in classes where this basic exercise is critiqued, I found common mistakes among students, they are listed here so that you can watch out for them.
Be sure you draw your poses first. From my experience, students who plan and draw out poses by hand usually get better results. This is probably because of the thinking and mental exploration involved in analyzing the pose.
Below is a link to a video tutorial that walks you through a process on how to pose a character by "bookending" the keyframes. It also covers how to use the Maya script editor.
http://www.randolfdimalanta.com/tutorials/bookending/index.html
Tips:
In teaching this exercise and in sitting in classes where this basic exercise is critiqued, I found common mistakes among students, they are listed here so that you can watch out for them.
Be sure you draw your poses first. From my experience, students who plan and draw out poses by hand usually get better results. This is probably because of the thinking and mental exploration involved in analyzing the pose.
- Exaggerate the emotions so that the idea of the emotion is clear.
- Clear silhouettes : Be sure your pose drawing is clear in silhouette form. For example, in silhouette form, arms and hands in front of the body, will not be seen. Keep these in the outside of the figure’s form so that the arms and hands remain visible.
- Hold your poses for at least 24 frames, with 10 frames between each pose.
- Follow a procedure in creating these poses and work from the center of the body outwards. I go in this order: Main control, root control, feet positioning, spine, head, arms, hands and lastly facial features.
