Challenge 7 : Footage
Since my shooting equipments are not quite good and space for shooting is limited, I turned to search animation references online.
For the basic body mechanic exercise, I choose to make a throwing-ball animation. I searched for footage and finally used this one:
Challenge 8 (Part 1) : Settings & Rough Blocking
Following with tutor’s guidence, I choose a model called Ray as my character animation trainning asset. Ray’s body is fit, his arm and legs are long enough to represent a good body movements.
Ray’s rigging is quite complicated. Therefore, I used Mel script to make several simple plugins to help me select these controls. I also set up image planes and import my footage inside maya, which helps me to make poses.
I did roughly blocking of the main actions of (every 8 frame) and spent more time to optimize my poses. I tried to make the throwing action looks more powerful and make sure that body mechanics of the character is correct. I think this blocking may still have some little problems so I will keep adjusting this animation when I am free.
I trying to add breakdowns, smooth the graphic editor to check the animation. I realized that the left knee and his head has a little bit shaking (especially the left knee)when the character’s body comes back after he threw the ball. I tried to figure out the reason but the shaking still remains.
What’s more, it looks a little bit unnatural when the body comes back after throwing the ball (upper body, especially spine and shoulder). I still need to check each controler later.