License-Free Maya Rig Testing **Update 2013**

Rigs, rigs, rigs....
They're all similar but oh, so different.
A great way to get ready for rigging your own characters is to try a LOT of rigs.  Learn what you like and don't like. Peek into the Outliner and see how organized it is (or not!). Check out how usable it is for animation.  Then you'll be ready to borrow ideas for your own rigs.

Please note if you use any of these rigs they are not for commercial use and must be properly credited!

3 sites with lots of rigs for you to try:
Animation Buffet

Creative Crash Maya Rigs

22+ of the most fun rigs for maya

FLOUR SACK:

Beautifully made flour sack rig (at last!) Created for Maya 2013 by Joe Daniels - check out his cool video clip as well!

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/jd-floursack

ELEVEN:
Created as a group collaboration project by members of the 11SC community!
I love the look of this super cute girl/guy rig!
It looks like a lovely rig so far. Very teensy compared to some other rigs. Fast, easy to use. Nice rig. We use this rig a lot at school.
http://elevenrig.blogspot.com/



NORMAN:
by Leif Jeffers, Morgan Loomis, Peter Starostin, and Neal Thibodeaux

This rig isn't much to look at but it's packed with features -- maybe too many? He's even got 'bend bows' for arcing limbs, sweet! The GUI is totally customizable and you really ought to be able to do anything with this rig.
Only a couple of problems -- the head CTRL -- you know, the one you might need to grab like 1000 times a day, is on the BACK of his head ??? So, unless you love working in XRAY mode or wireframe, you have to do a little tumbling every time you want to grab it.

People have customized Norman into all SORTS of amazing models. Check them out!
https://sites.google.com/site/normanrig/

MORPHEUS:

by Josh Burton 

Wow. Just wow. This is a very distinctive.. and unique GUI.  Is this a good thing? I'm not sure. I find it distracting.  Good news -- it's just to customize the rig into all sorts of different 'looks'. Then you can hide that sucker.

The rig is very slick and there are more ctrls than you can shake a stick at.
http://www.joshburton.com/projects/morpheus.asp

MOOM:
by Ramtin Ahmadi

This ugly-on-purpose rig has a very slick GUI and it's easy to find your way around right out of the box. *NOTE* - one of the arms was IK and the other FK (perhaps purposefully?) but the switch turned out to be not that hard to find (on the ground).  My favorite so far for ease of use.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/moom-v4-0-3-by-ramtin

MAX: (Maya or Max)
by Peter Starostin and James Hunt

Last but not least, this well-used rig has a lot to recommend it.

I liked how easy it was to find everything ... except one very important thing... the MAIN CTRL!
I'm used to seeing, 1, 2, or 3 big, obvious ctrls somewhere in the area of the character's feet.  I see a ROOT but it's in his middle and with IK legs, it only moves the middle. My apologies if it's staring me in the face and I just can't see it!
http://www.bockstyre.com/james/maxformaya/

HEAVY: from Team Fortress - might be some copyright infringement going on here but it's fun to play with.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/heavy-character-rig

SQUIRRELY by Josh Burton:
This is a great opportunity to test out Anzovin's popular autorig, the "Setup Machine".  Very quick and easy to use, also the setup machine rig can be purchased and used with any of your own characters. 

http://www.joshburton.com/projects/Squirrely.asp

Lovely rigs but not recommended for school:

STEWART: *NOT FOR SCHOOL USE :(
Meet Stewart, Animation Mentor's new rig from their "Tribe" family. It's a very versatile athletic rig with lots of bells and whistles like bend bows, stretchy everything, double gimbals, IK/FK switching and more.
Be sure to include their attribution for non-commercial use. Download it here: http://www.animationmentor.com/free-maya-rig/

MALCOLM: * NOT FOR SCHOOL USE :(
AnimSchool has a very cool rig up for grabs as well: Malcolm. Its only 2 negatives are that it is a fully-decked-out feature rig complete with 1000 ctrls and it might be a bit over the heads of students just learning Maya. The other negative is that it's the ONLY free feature-quality rig out there, imho, which makes it extremely popular. The 11-second club winners use it almost exclusively.
I am using it myself, but the female mod which looks a bit like this:
http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx

BUCKID: Buckid is a super simple Maya rig for people just starting out.  1 major flaw: lack of independent hips. The one hip CTRL drives all the ones above. That means if you use hip rotation in your walks, you will need to counter animate the upper spine and head. But aside from that it is a fun, snappy, simple rig with stretchy limbs and spine that is really fun to work with.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/buckid

Conclusion:

Well, the jury's still out. People have certainly created some fantastic animation with all of these rigs.  

I'm looking for a simple interface like Moom that has a neater look like Eleven.

I'd have to vote for either ELEVEN or MOOM.
Morpheus is also worth another look if you don't mind that interface.

Try-em out for yourself and let me know what you think!

WEEK 15: Character Acting 2: Acting scene In-Class Critique

Last class!!! Can't wait to see your final assignments!!
The deadline is Wednesday, April 18th in class, however, I'm sticking around in case you want any last-minute advice to tweak your project before submitting it to the FTP by midnight. I can also help you decipher any of the critiques you got on previous assignments. It's been an absolute pleasure seeing your hard work and dedication pay off with some truly great work this term.
I look forward to working with you in the future.
Please stay in touch.


Have a great summer everyone. Good luck with all your deadlines!

End of year deadline!

DEADLINE FOR ALL ASSIGNMENTS: 

FRIDAY, APRIL 20th, 2012 at Midnight

all files must be submitted via our 

FTP or the shared DROPBOX file for your class

Please check that:

• your name is on all your files (first initial, last name, underscore, project name, underscore, iteration.filetype) ex, tdonovan_tapdancing_012.avi
• your images or videos are a decent size - not too big or too small, or weirdly proportioned. Good settings are: 720p (1280×720 pixels) or 1/2 that size, (640 x 360). 
• you save a standard filetype that can be opened in QT or any picture viewer: .avi, .mov, .mpeg4, .jpg, .png, .tga, .tif. (NOT .flv, .swf, wmv, .psd) 
• you used a standard codec -- by far the best is H.264
• ask me if you have any questions!

Good Luck!

WEEK 14: Character Acting 2: Acting scene, continued: Adding the final details

Lessons in simplicity from the Muppets

The eyes add a huge amount of subtle character.

We'll have a look at your work in progress which should include all major poses, breakdowns, and important facial keys.

Moving on to your third and final stage before next week's critique -

Step Three: Refining the action, adding the details.
Due in class & on FTP 04/18/12

Now's the time to dig into the details like eye blinks and darts, adding overlapping action, any bend bows or smears on the head, arms, and hands, and yes, finally, mouth shapes.

I have a lot of information for you about animating dialogue from masters of animation like Ollie Johnson and Art Babbit.

I recommend you read Richard William's chapter on 'Flexibility in the face' 246-250

WEEK 13: Character Acting 2: Acting scene, continued: Adding the extremes

We'll take a look at your blocking from last week and tweak it before moving on to the next stage.

I'll also show you an example of great blocking from Sony Imageworks' lead animator, Kevin Webb.

Sony Imageworks' Kevin Webb's blocking & final animation 

Step Two:  Adding the extremes 
Due in class 04/11/12:
Also called adding breakdowns or tie downs. Working between the main poses, refine the timing and motion by adding more keys. If you've been using stepped keys, it's time to switch to spline and flat tangents, may I recommend you do that a section at a time. Now's the time to start adding moving holds, fingers & some facial details, but not yet time for full lip sync and eye details like blinks and darts.

Tweak your camera to flatter your action but consider it as locked as possible from now on.

WEEK 12: Character Acting 2: Quadruped Walk wrap-up + Final Assignment - Acting scene

We'll wrap up the quadruped animation and move on to your final assignment: A character acting scene.  Please don't think of this as 'lip sync' - acting has very little to do with the mouth moving in time to the sound.

You have 3 weeks for this assignment and I've divided the work for you into 3 neat chunks: blocking the keys, adding the extremes, then adding detail. The full description follows.

Jeff Gabor with his animation progression & a plastic spoon

It may come as a surprise that the 'lip sync' part of character acting does not happen until the very last stage.  Please do NOT blast forth with lip sync, that would be very gauche ;o) And for love of Thor, please, no face cams!  Ugh..

The only thing I want you to work on for now is the blocking. The poses are the scaffolding of your entire scene. If they work, every layer of detail will improve it. If not, every layer will magnify their flaws.

Step One: Layout
Due in class 04/04/12:
Also called blocking or posing. You may need to thumbnail your scene first.  Pose the main body positions to support the important ideas and beats, usually around 1 pose per second, with only 2 or 3 major accents per scene. You may work with stepped keys or include 4 frame transitions between poses. Do not include unecessary breakdowns or facial animation, just posing. Do pose the face into the relevant expression but do not animate it at this stage.

Establish your camera(s) at this stage and try not to change them for the duration of the project.  You may include cuts, and if justified, truck ins/outs or pans to follow the action.  Keep these minimal, motivated and crisp (no floaty cameras, please).

Please read the following pages from Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit':
311-326, 338-339

We'll have a look at some great resources for creating animated dialogue including some critiques from Animation Mentor's 11 Second Slub and the iAnimate showreel. 

Another great resource is Keith Lango. His article about Lip Sync is clear and concise.

Assignment 5: Acting Scene
Assigned: 28/03/12
Due: 18/04/12
% of final grade: 20%

Animate a character acting scene with dialogue. Work from your own live action reference, ideally the scene you practiced with Ed in Term 1. You may work in your pairs or groups for multi-character dialogue scenes and animate one of the characters only, or you may attempt to animate multiple characters.

Use pre-built rigs of your choice.

Rubric:

Exemplary: Convincing and well-motivated acting, clear, strong posing, snappy timing and fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles including secondary/overlapping action. High attention to detail in all parts of the body, including eyes, mouth, and hands. Very high level of polish. Demo reel ready.

Excellent:  Solid acting with consistently good posing and timing, almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles including a good attempt at secondary action. Attention to detail in face and hands. High level of polish. Nearly demo reel ready with minor adjustments.

Acceptable: Decent acting with mostly good posing and timing. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles. Some attempt at secondary action. Face and hands animated but not quite polished. Within a few hours of demo reel quality.

Not Acceptable: Acting, posing or timing not clear or well planned. Motion not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles. Secondary action needing major work. Face and hand animation lacking detail. Quite far from demo reel level.

Equal weight will be given to:
Acting, Posing, Timing, Fluidity, Overlapping Actions/Secondary Motion,

Please submit files by FTP.
Please hand in 2 files, your playblast and your maya file.
You can hand in videos in any standard format except .wmv.
Ex: .mov, .avi, .mp4,
Naming convention:
tdonovan_acting_000.ma
tdonovan_acting_000.avi

Include any necessary referenced files. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces. Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

Good luck!

Bobby Chiu coming to GBC! March 29th 7:00-9:00pm at room 515.

Character designer Bobby Chiu (Alice in Wonderland, MIB3) is coming to George Brown to give a one time only digital painting lesson that is not to be missed. 

Mark your calendars and spread the word for us.

March 29th 7:00-9:00pm at room 515.

Open to all students and friends of GBC Game Design

CASO presents: An Exploration of today's digital workflow Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:30am until 1:30pm

Animation Direction 2 (DESN1137) - this will be a field trip for your class. Meet at TIFF before 11:30.
--------------
CASO presents: A Visionary Lunch -- An Exploration of today's digital workflow -- MR. X case study with Dennis Berardi  
Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:30am until 1:30pm

Please note that pre-registration is now necessary as TIFF is not allowing money to be collected at the door. (:op)

Contact:
Shirlyn Antonio, CASO
345 Adelaide Street West
Suite 600
Toronto, ON M5V 1R5
416.207.9142
shirlyn@casont.ca

*SPECIAL GBC Students Price (+HST): $10.00 Lunch is included 

Members Price (+HST) $25.00 In Advanced $40.00 At the Door

Non-Members Price (+HST) $40.00 In Advanced $55.00 At The Door

Please sign up here: http://bit.ly/gbcsignup


Main areas of discussion:

TRON: LEGACY, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Hanna, The Thing, The Three Musketeers

• How to build a digital studio in the today's economic climate
• How to deliver big volume and top quality on a deadline
• How to compete on the global stage
• How to get really good at digital animation and visual effects - the path to excellence finding and retaining top international talent

WEEK 11: Character Acting 2: Quadrupeds, continued

Continuing this week with quadrupeds..

Part of this class will be a work period so I can help you guys work on your animation.

I also have a lot of video reference for you of horses and animating horses in video games and movies.

We'll compare some horse animation from some popular video games like Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of the Colossus, and Skyrim and see where the horse physics is really working .. or not.  

Epic! Lord of the Rings called for hundreds of horses. Some shots were too dangerous to use 100% real horses.

Special FX included digitally animated horses and integration using massive
blue screens.

They even used large-scale horse mo-cap.

WEEK 10: Character Acting 2: Quadrupeds with Guest Speaker, Cathy Feraday

Welcome back to GBC guest lecturer Cathy Feraday Miller to give us some more advice about animating 4-legged walks.

Cathy began her career at Dreamworks as a classical animator, working on the features The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado. Switching to 3D animation in 1999, Cathy has worked for various feature and game companies in San Francisco and Toronto, and has taught 3D animation at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and at Max The Mutt Animation School in Toronto. A Toronto resident since 2009, Cathy is now working with her husband Tim as Art Director and co-founder for their own independent game studio, Rocket 5 Studios.

WEEK 9: Character Acting 2: Quadrupeds

Welcome back!

Building on your detailed study of bipedal locomotion, we're progressing to a whole new level with quadrupeds. Some of you did some pretty in-depth analysis of 4-legged walks last term for Assignment 3. You might even be able to use or build on the hand-drawn posing you already did for this assignment.  

I'll share a ton of reference material to help get you started -- info from books, lectures, animation, and live action.
Click here for a link to some helpful reference. 

We'll crack open a couple of free 3D rigs - you can try the free rig from the Digital Tutors course "Animating Quadrupeds in Maya", or try using Koko -- a cartoony dog -- or Rhett -- a realistic horse - from Creative Crash (you need to create an account to download them):

* Rhett the Clydesdale is currently down for updates! Boo...
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/rhett-the-clydesdale

Click here for the Rhett rig with a tail.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/koko

Assignment 4: Quadruped Walk
Assigned: 06/03/12
Due: 26/03/12
% of final grade: 20%
Animate a seamless, looping quadruped walk cycle. It should look good from any angle. Show it in a turntable or from multiple views. The walk is the essential part of this assignment. For extra credit you can transition into another gait (trot, canter, gallop). You could also try adding some variation to the walk, for example a head movement or navigating over an obstacle.

Use a pre-built quadruped rig of your choice.

Rubric:

Exemplary: Strong apparent weight, snappy timing and fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles including secondary/overlapping action on details like the ears and tail.

Excellent: Apparent weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles including a good attempt at secondary action.

Acceptable: Mostly apparent weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles. Some attempt at secondary action.

Not Acceptable: Not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles. no apparent secondary action.

Equal weight will be given to:
Weight, Timing, Fluidity, Overlapping Actions/Secondary Motion

Please submit files by FTP.
Please hand in 2 files, your playblast and your maya file.
You can hand in videos in any standard format except .wmv.
Ex: .mov, .avi, .mp4,
Naming convention:
tdonovan_horse_000.ma
tdonovan_horse_000.avi

Include any necessary referenced files. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces. Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

WEEK 7: Character Acting 2: Attack, continued!!

Today is a work period to go over the results of your Run Animation assignment and do a WIP check of your Attack assignment. 






We'll also study a few examples of 'snappy' animation from Pixar and Warner Brothers and analyze what makes the timing so punchy and slick. 

WEEK 6: Character Acting 2: Attack, continued!!

that's some anticipation right there!

Assignment 3: Attack
Assigned: 08/02/12
Due: 05/03/12
% of final grade: 20%

Tranisition from the walk and run cycles into an 'attack'. Your file should include the walk cycle and the transition to the run. Include a transition into the attack that shows anticipation, and be sure to complete the action with a believeable follow through.  If possibly, the attack should also transition back into the run or the walk.

Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.

Rubric:
Exemplary: Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles. Action transitions flawlessly from the walk or run and includes a clear anticipation and follow through.
Excellent: Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles. Action transitions smoothly from the walk or run and includes an anticipation and follow through.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles. Action transitions reasonably smoothly from walk or run with some attempt at anticipation and follow through.
Not Acceptable: Attack not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles. Transition not smooth or with errors such as missing anticipation or follow through.

Equal weight will be given to:
Attitude/Personality, Weight, Pacing/Timing, Overlapping Actions/Secondary Motion

Please submit files by FTP.

Please hand in 2 files, your playblast and your maya fil.
You can hand in videos in any standard format except .wmv.
Ex: .mov, .avi, .mp4,
Naming convention:
tdonovan_attack_000.ma
tdonovan_attack_000.avi

Include any referenced files. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces. Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

Please hand in files via ftp.

WEEK 5: Character Acting 2: Attack!!

Wrapping up your rigs, walks, and runs -- I'll spend time going over your marks for the first assignment and answer any questions you may have about the work you've done so far.

Next up: attacks!  This is our final assignment before the break.  Making the most of the fight choreography training you had in Term 1, come up with a fight movement or short sequence that flows logically and fluidly from your cycle animation.

You can use weapons if you like. I mean your characters can.

We'll look at a couple of examples of great fight sequences and analyse what makes them so punchy and fun to watch.

WEEK 4: Character Acting 2: Transitions to Run Cycles

Transitioning from walk cycles to run cycles this week -- we'll start dealing with blending cycles together. I don't want to see just any ol' computer-tweened morphing from you guys! I want a real transition! Think about how you'd go from walking to running. Slap on those runners, hit some pavement or a treadmill and feel the difference between the two gaits. Make sure it's obvious in your animation that you understand a new action requires an anticipation.

Does your COG drop a bit lower before it springs higher? Do you need to lean forward? Do you take one big walking step before your first running step? Exaggerating things like this to make the audience appreciate your analysis.

We'll look at some video analysis of running. There are so many kinds of running -- sprinting and long-distance running, jogging, barefoot running, and all sorts of speeds (spm) and styles, including cartoony.

Read up on runs:
Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" pgs 176 - 200

Assignment 2: Run Cycle
Assigned: 31/01/12
Due: 13/02/12
% of final grade: 20%

Animate a treadmill run that clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character.
Your file should include the walk cycle and the transition to the run. The run cycle should also cycle on its own.
Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.
The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical (apparently if not mathematically) and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:Exemplary: Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent: Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic run not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Equal weight will be given to:

Attitude/Personality, Weight, Pacing/Timing, Overlapping Actions/Secondary Motion

Please submit files by FTP.

Please hand in 2 files named as follows:
tdonovan_run_000.ma
tdonovan_run_000.avi

Include any referenced files. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces.
Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

WEEK 3: Character Acting 2 -- Walks, wrap-up, transitioning to runs

The famous 'human/dog' comparison scene from 101 Dalmations

We'll wrap up the final stages of the walk, adding subtle details that can make your walk look unique and polished.  There are lots of great examples of hand-drawn cartoon walks from on "Walk Cycle Depot" and "Pencil Test Depot" for us to have a look at.  Good luck with your deadline this weekend!

Next we'll get ready to transition into the run cycle.

Next class I'll show you a bunch of video examples of both sprinters and long-distance runners in slow motion and talk about the mechanics of a run.

Homework: Read up on runs in the Animator's Survival Kit pgs 176-200


Assignment 2:  Run Cycle
Assigned: 25/01/12
Due: 12/02/12
% of final grade: 20%

Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.

Animate a treadmill run that clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character. The run should cycle on its own but also transition smoothly from the walk. By transition I mean there should be a believable weight shift to pick up speed - this could include an anticipation, a change of mood, and a shift forward in the center of gravity.

The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical (apparently if not mathematically) and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:
Exemplary:  Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent:  Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic walk not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Equal weight will be given to:

Attitude/Personality
Weight
Pacing/Timing
Overlapping Actions / Secondary Motion

Please submit files by FTP. Instructions will be sent via email.

Submitting work via FTP

All assignments for my classes should be submitted digitally via FTP. You'll need to install a free FTP program like Filezilla or FireFTP.

I'll email you the login info and we'll go over it in class.

Our directory is publicFTP/Tara and the subfolder for your course. Example:

Inside the course folder:

(1) I'll create a folder for each of your assignments.
(ex: assignment 1, assignment 2)

(2) Inside the assignment folder please create one folder with your first initial, last name.
(ex: tdonovan)

(3) Inside each subfolder, put your named files.
(ex: tdonovan_walk_cycle_001.ma, tdonovan_hydrant_uvs.png)

Feel free to leave me a note as a .TXT file. Word Files are too slow to launch.  Always send me an email regarding any verbal agreement for extensions or modifications to the assignment.

Please be careful with the files in this shared directory. If you accidentally delete someone else's file please let them and me know asap so it can be restored. Always have backups saved in more than one secure location (ex, a portable hard drive as well as saved on a backed-up computer as well as sent to yourself via email or DropBox.)

If you're unfamiliar with using FTP programs and/or you have trouble, please ask for help from the peer tutors. It only takes 5 failed password attempts in 5 minutes to lock yourself out of the server. At school, that means the whole school's IP.  Stop after 2 failed attempts and check all the info again. 99% of the FTP problems students have had in the past resulted from typos.

Files can take several minutes or longer to upload especially if the server is busy. Please allow time for uploading and don't wait 'til the last minute to send your files.

If you encounter a big problem, such as our server crashing, please send me a screen grab confirming the error and I'll issue extensions to the whole class.  

Assignments cannot be handed in via any other means but FTP  without special permission.
Please do not email me your videos or other large files as attachments.
I'll explain other options as needed.

WEEK 2: Character Acting 2 -- Blended Game Cycles: Walks & Runs

Walking, continued..
We'll dig in to some more of the details from Richard William's lengthy chapter on walks.



Assignment 1: Walk Cycle
Assigned: 18/01/12
Due: 29/01/12
% of final grade: 20%

Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.

Animate a treadmill walk that clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character.
The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical (apparently if not mathematically) and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:
Exemplary:  Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent:  Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic walk not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Equal weight will be given to:

• Attitude/Personality
• Weight
• Pacing/Timing
• Overlapping Actions / Secondary Motion

Please submit files by FTP. Instructions will be sent via email.

Please hand in 2 files named as follows:
tdonovan_walk_000.ma
tdonovan_walk_000.avi

Include any referenced files. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces.
Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

WEEK 1: Character Acting 2 -- Blended Game Cycles: Walks & Runs

Welcome back!

We're combining all your hard work and analysis from last term to create some great game cycles for your reel.

First up - revisiting walks.  Walk cycles again? Oh yes.. you can never get enough walk cycles. You've learned a lot since last year. Trust me. I'll show you last year's walks so you can get some perspective.

This time around the walk needs to transition smoothly into two more cycles -- the run and the attack.  All 3 cycles should cycle independently and blend seamlessly.  If you get them all working smoothly, the group of cycles should look as badass at this dude's dog.

I want character walks, not just any old generic tutorial walks. You shot reference, you can shoot more.  This is where all your animation principles and study all come together. Make it yours and make it awesome.  

Use any high-end rig you like. Here's a link to my post about sample rigs:
http://tarateach.blogspot.com/2011/01/license-free-maya-rig-testing.html


We'll get started this week with some refresher concepts about cycles and animating walks in Maya.

For next week, please read the chapter on walks from page 102-163 in Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit".

(The walk cycle assignment description and rubric will be posted shortly.)