Week 4 - Testing the Rig

I have a rough idea of what I want to do for my animation project. I am basing my animations off of a game character I designed for another module, so luckily I managed to find a rig (thanks to my tutor!) with roughly the same proportions.

In class I tried a few poses to get familiar with the rig. Below you can see the reference and then the pose I replicated. I found this more challenging than previous rigs because of the character proportions, but I tried to look at the main areas showing weight and movement when replicating the pose. There are a few areas I can see now that I have missed, mainly the hips, which I will try to keep in mind for future.

I found this second pose even more challenging due to the small proportions of the rig, but I tried to make it look as believable as possible for the character's size.

The rig I'm using is the great Lily and Snout rig for Maya.

Week 1 - Posing

This week was the first of my second semester at uni, and the first week of my animation class. Animation is the area I probably have the least experience in so far, and although I don't want to be an animator I think it will be useful to learn.

In class we were introduced to some of the animation controls in Maya, and then went on to try some character poses. It was a useful exercise as I am not used to thinking about anatomy in terms of movement. Looking back at it now, I can see that the legs should be at a wider angle with the front one facing more towards the ground. The arms also need tilted forward a little to show the proper movement and weight of the pose. I found it a useful exercise and I'm looking forward to the rest of this class.