Spec Anim 1

This is the finished reel of work from my first project of the year. In Spec Anim 1 we had to learn to animate in Maya and in MotionBuilder in three weeks. I started using Maya at the end of second year for my major project work, but this is the first time we'd been taught how to use it properly. I wouldn't say it's any harder than animating in Max, there are aspects of both programs that I prefer, though generally I find the UI in Max to be more user friendly. Maya seems to have more options for animating though, so I'm glad I got to grips with it more in this project as I'll be using it for the rest of third year.

We only had a week to learn MotionBuilder which I don't think was enough time to understand most of the program. But I managed to blend some mocap clips and animate my own section in that time, so it's a good basis of knowledge if I need to use it in the future.

I'm more happy with some parts than others. All in all though I wish I'd spent more time on each stage of the project.

In week one the task was to animate two balls of differing weights (a tennis ball and a cannon ball) bouncing down a set of stairs and around an obstacle course.

For week two I had to create a simple walking ball rig and animate a walk.

And in week three I blended a set of clips in MotionBuilder and animated a section with added character

I'm not too happy with the timing of the balls in the obstacle course, and the ball walk needs some more work. But I'm fairly happy with the blended clips in MotionBuilder, though I think I should have spent a bit more time on animating in the program as well.

Below is a screenshot of the ball rig I made in Maya. We were instructed on the exact setup of the rig and it was fairly straightforward as it was the first time most of us had rigged in Maya. But I now have an understanding of the basic principles in both Max and Maya, so I shouldn't have too much difficulty if I need to create my own rig again.