Escape Studios AN5002: Animation
When moving from sourcing and editing video reference to beginning animation in Maya, my first step was the setup of the project and the scene within it. I followed an "Animation Pre-Flight Checklist" that I had created for myself. This contained steps such as ensuring that the Frame Rate was 24 FPS and the Playback Speed was 24FPS×1, as well as activating autosaves and setting a new project. The entire Animation Pre-Flight Checklist can be found here. Once this was done, I created a new camera and named it "refcam" in the Outliner. I then created an Image Plane which was attached to this camera's view, as opposed to a Free Image Plane which would not follow the camera's transformations. The video that was loaded onto this Image Plane was my video reference: which had been changed to a PNG sequence so that it could be easily imported into Maya.
I initially had issues where the image sequence would not show in Maya beyond the first frame. I found that this occurred because Adobe Media Encoder (the software that I had used to render the image sequence) uses 5 digits of padding for the frame number (e.g. AN5002tigerref.00001.png) whereas Maya would only recognize an image sequence if it had 4 digits of padding (e.g. 0001). Once this was corrected, I had a working image sequence. I used the positioning of the two flat surfaces that the tiger jumps between in the reference as guidelines for the scale and positioning of two cubes. These would act as stand-ins for the set, which I intended to import and create after blocking out the animation. My final preparatory step was to import the tiger rig and its textures into the project, and use the master control to position it in its starting location according to the reference.
The first step of animating the rig was to block out the overall motion of the tiger in accordance with the video reference. This was done by creating a Selection Set containing the Root control of the rig and the controls for its four feet, which together moved the entire mesh without altering the position of the master control. This resulted in a simple translation and rotation of the rig through the scene, which I could build upon. After this, I focused on individual body parts and groups of controllers, such as the torso (using the chest and hip controls), the head (using the three neck controls), the tail, and each individual leg (using the foot controls and pole vectors). I focused on one section at a time through the entire animation, matching it to the reference at intervals of four frames. This methodical approach boosted my efficiency, as it gave me a clear idea of what I should be working on at any given time. It resulted, however, in animation that looked jittery and did not have fluid motion.
My response to this was to go through my animation and smooth out certain curves. I deleted the majority of keyframes that I had made, especially those that seemed to be at odds with the overall direction of the graph at certain points. Another area that needed more attention was the turning motion of the tiger. In my video reference, the tiger leads the turn with its front half, and the rear end of the tiger follows through. I had to create this effect, and mitigate the effect of the block out, which initially looked like the tiger was turning on the spot. I found the orthographic top view very helpful in achieving this. The difference after seeing my animation from this alternate perspective is quite noticeable. Upon completing this, I carried out my first test render.
The last few steps were small areas of refinement, such as heel roll and twist on the foot controls, as well as the animation of the torso moving subtly from side to side during the walk as the tiger balances its weight. After this, I imported and arranged the set, building simple geometry such as the walls and metal bars that make up the enclosure that I had planned in the storyboarding phase. The wooden elements and the ground texture were taken from CGTrader. After applying an Arnold Physical Sky with a 3000K colour temperature as a Key Light, and a subtle blue Directional Light as my Fill Light (representing reflected light from the sky). I carried out my final render.
Certain areas such as the animation of the tiger showing interest in the meat could definitely use improvement: the performance aspect of the animation is weaker than the mechanics. The use of reference allowed me to add realism to the motion of the tiger, highlighted in the way it slows itself after the jump and the flicking action of the tail during the jump. It is the second half of the animation, which focuses on subtler movements, that does not have the same quality in my opinion. This may be because of the rigidity caused by incorrect tangents, or the inconsistencies between reference clips which I had to account for. Overall, I would describe this as an attempt at creature animation with some competently carried-out aspects but others which fall short of industry-level animation.
