Next Week – Animation Tasks & Focus
Checklist:
- Organize reference clips
- Finalize idea and story beats
- Prep scene file (camera, rig, environment if needed)
Blocking Phase Goals:
Blocking Plus (Blocking with Moving Holds)
- Include moving holds to keep the animation alive even in still moments
- Maintain rhythm and weight with subtle in-place motion
Blocking in Steps
- All major keys placed on the same frame per pose (stepped tangents)
- Emphasize strong pose-to-pose structure
Weighted tangent
By default, Maya comes with unweighted tangents within the graph editor, which makes the process of adjusting curves cumbersome, f.e, when adding hangouts to baking ball animation and then changing the position of the bounce. To solve this issue, the use of weighted tangents is recommended.
You never have to break the tangents with the weighted tangent option. Breaking the tangents to change the direction.
Animation
- Reference the rig.
- Perform animation on master controller.
- Adjust the graph editor.
- While working in spline, break the tangent first, before applying the weighted tangent (default is unweighted tangent)
Working with weighted tangents. Select it all -> change to weighted tangent -> MMB + shift and drag, (shift just like in the other software, keep the line straight while expanding)
Troubleshooting
Maya stop showing the rig/model in the viewport, then: select the view →show → viewport → check for what stuff is unchecked.
Working with the weighted tangent. Translation Y, going up and down.
So the slope is steep to start with, which means that the character will pop up. On the contrary, the slope is easing down slowly which means character will smoothly and steadily come to rest.
Here. The slow, steady start gives an anticipation. The quick steep end, mean character gows straight down in.
This graph describes Translation Y. Before the character goes up, it goes down at first, the start of the graph goes to minus values, before it goes up again.
The tangent gets rotated to get more of the “hang out” time. Hanging out in the air, reaching equilibrium, losing momentum, before again starts falling down.
Baking keys & transferring it over to limbs
result:
The elbow constraints are only visible in the IK, be sure to change the IKFK to 1. setting IKFK = 1 switches the arm from FK mode (0) to IK mode (1).
In an IK (Inverse Kinematics) setup, the elbow is usually constrained via a pole vector or some specific control to guide the elbow’s bend. In FK (Forward Kinematics), you manually rotate joints without the system solving the bend, so “elbow constraints” (like pole vectors) don’t really apply in the same way or may not be visible/active.
Workflow:
Select the elbow control group or object (which has the constraint) →
Shift-select the elbow locator (driver) →
Apply a parent constraint (Maintain Offset OFF) →
This way, the control moves exactly with the locator — no offset.
The above shows the correct constraints.
Once all 9 parent constraints have been applied, proceed with baking the keys.
After baking the animation key into locators (selecting all the locators and then Key -> Baking), selecting all the constraints and deleting them, the animation made on the main controller, and when playing the animation, the locators kept on animated in the viewport.
“You never should animate on the master control, but you can use the master control to your advantage”
in order to do so, you follow the following process:
1. Animate on the master control and adjust the animation to fit your timing.
2. Create locators for each (9) foot, knee, arm, elbow, X 2 right and left sides respectively, + COG (usually the pelvis)
3. Create parent constraints for each of these locators with the parent (driver) of the corresponding control (do not apply the offset) and locator as its child.
4. Bake the animation key onto the locators (after checking that the previous step was done correctly).
5. Delete the constraints.
6. Perform the reverse copying of animation from the locators onto the controllers (this time with maintain offset), watch out: the elbow and knees polar vector constraints only allow for translation and no rotation, you won’t be able to copy it over, which may yield an error.
7. Select all the controllers via the quick selection tool (no master control included, no constraints). Baking the animation key onto the constraints now.
8. Deleting all the locators afterwards.
This is a wrong selection set; again, no animation on the master control.
The Tangents configuration for the animation in blocking, as per the image above.
1. Update the settings.
2. Open the graph editor, select all of these and opt for stepped tangent. Essentially, this will allow to see all the poses.
Moving holds.
Get your poses done, according to the planning you prepared before this exercise.
Let’s say you’re gonna pose 10 and 16 (since animation is baked every 3 frames) and leave the 13 unposed.
1. Select controllers via the quick selection key.
2. Narrowed down key frames to 10 – 16, and applied spline animation for this section within the graph editor.
3. Copy the animation from frame 11, given to you from sthe pline by Maya, into the frame 13, via the MMB and this would essentially create the moving holds.
4. Go to frame 13 and slightly readjust the animation, such as the head moving slightly the other way.
31:07 picked up from here