Week3: Constrain & walk with prop animation

Introduction

When I arrived in London, I just brought a Microsoft Surface, which apparently could only do simple animation in Maya. Though I didn’t have IT problems in the previous assignments. I didn’t expect that I would be in great trouble this time. This leads me to spend a lot of time doing meaningless things.

TIPS:

1. Use the correct constrain
2. Notice the change of hip movement.
3. Keep the balance by moving the hip.
4. Show up and down movement.

PROBLEM:

1. IT problem which led to Maya always crashed!!!
2. Probably I didn’t key fully in character, so when I keyed a frame the previous frames also move.
3. Can’t use constrain
4. The walk cycle looks so strange without keeping balance.
5. It can’t be play one frame by one frames in Maya.

Process

At first, I reviewed the knowledge of constrain, which I used in rigging in my undergraduate course.

Constrain

1. Parent父对象约束
2. Choose two subjects, press P to parent them (shift+P can cancel). And the son object is chosen first, the father object is chosen later.

Son object can move, rotate, scale according to father object.

However, this parent method is to place one subject on another to form a dependency relationship, and cannot be applied to a group of objects. 这种parent方式是把一个主体放到另一个主体形成从属关系，不可以运用在多个物体上。

• Another parent method which can be use in a group of objects is go to constrain and chose parent, after making many objects in one group(ctrl+G). The son object is chosen later the father object is chosen first.

Remember to center pivot in create menu.

Notice choose Maintain offset in option. Most of constrains are needed to chose it because it can keep the original distance between two subjects. If not select, the son subject will move into father subject.

• Point目标约束 position
• Orient方向约束 方向（原地）
• Scale缩放约束
• Aim 跟着爸爸走

Reference：http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_aff7a4630101at7p.html

And then, I chose the model in resource provided by Luke, at last I chose a cowboy and a hand gun.

According to the experience I got last time, I moved my model’s leg following the frames order, and Keep adjusting each movement.

what different from the last assignment was the platform, which was not a flat this time. So, I needed to pay attention to the contact between foot and ground.

After finishing the leg movement, I also tried to adjust the hip. First, the hips will lean toward the leg which move, while the shoulders will rise, creating an Angle between them. Second, the character rotated to the direction of the stepped leg. Finally, the hip moves up and down with the whole body.

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Furthermore, I adjusted the arms, which used ‘break down’ to make it looked active. However, the controllers of the joints just were moved in translate Y, which led to the movements of arms were shown strangely.

The handgun needed to be held in your hand. After Adjusting the fingers, I found it impossible to choose a gun or controller directly to make them to constrain. Therefore, I group to the gun and successfully to use father constrain, though I just need to coordinate the position of the gun.

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Also, I quickly adjust the hat and facial emotion.

Let’s look the footage of the first walk without platform:

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Let’s look the video of the whole walk without platform in two sides:

Problem

What the worst problem is my computer configuration cannot run Maya well!!! I rebooted Maya at least 10 times, and I even rebooted my computer. What’s more, I even saw the controller moved, but the model didn’t, which affected me to check my actions.

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Fortunately, I found out how to solve this problem that I just rotated the controller and then the model adjusted normally.

But it has taken me a lot of time.

In addition, I don’t know if I made a mistake in key at first using S after choosing all channels instead of using key selected. In the top three action, if I adjusted the third movement, the first and the second ones will move together. I just had to key again to fix the channels (translation).

Review

After Luke checked my work, I found I forgot to keep my character balance! That’s reason why my character walk so strange! Also, I need to adjust the direction of the body when he walked.

So, I bent his hip more obvious, and rotate it to left and right. What is more, I made the character open and close his eyes which let him to move more vivid.

Review2(update on 201120)

The first thing I need to keep the balance again!!! It’s not enough!!!

And then I should continue to adjust the rotation or his arms, which looks more curved.

What I should notice is that make his body more curved so that it looks like a arc.

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There is a new konwledge that I can adjust the key(point) in graph editor instead of dragging in timeline, it will be more quickly because it just drag not need to use keyboard.

Just like the principle’break your arm’, the body need to be rotate in different scale.

Conclusion

Even if I can’t do it will, but I master how to key a walk cycle finally. For example, I know when and what need to adjust in my character to avoid slide step. I look forward to doing the next walk animation.