Thursday, October 3, 2013

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Animation Tips & Tricks

ANIMATION USING MAYA ? WHAT ? HOW? 

To really get into a characters head and really feel what they feel I ask myself a lot of questions. I’ve broken it down to my own personal steps.

Step 1: Draw from your own experiences

• When have you been in a similar situation?
• How did you feel?
• How did you carry yourself?
• How did you want others to perceive you?
• What were you doing?
• How were the people around you acting?
• What got you into that situation?
• What were you thinking vs. what you were saying?
• What environment were you in and how did that affect you? Example: A fight with a girlfriend in your living room will be different than at the library.


Animation in MAYA

Overview

The thrill of working in the uncharted territories of 3D animation has brought many new digital artists into animation. Animation has benefited immensely from this new blood, challenging the limits of what animation could be. While new ideas seem to propel the industry forward, much of the traditional workflow has been thrown by the wayside. The tradigiTOOLS plugin for Maya has been created to aid the modern animator in utilizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the traditional workflow without sacrificing the creative and groundbreaking spirit that the new digital tools have brought to the table.

In the traditional process, when key poses aren’t connecting motion correctly the animator would just add another drawing between the keys to further break down the action. Anyone who has animated in a 3D program knows it’s not that easy. That is, until tradigiTOOLS. Stop wrestling in the graph editor, or trying to make sense of the barcode your timeline has become. Grab tradigiTOOLS, lay out some strong keyframes, add more poses, and watch the motion come alive. Push and pull timing changes without a glimpse of the graph editor. Always know where you are on the timeline and modify it with a couple of clicks. Preview render everything with markings to make finding problem areas a snap.

Features

  • Click to set key and breakdowns quickly and see them differentiated by color-code on the timeline.
  • Use the Favor buttons to modify the motion between previously set poses, then tweak the favor settings with a slider for precision or skip both and get mathematical with numerical input.
  • Switch between overwrite mode and fix what’s on the current frame or use the ripple mode to shift every pose that follows further down the timeline.
  • Select the entire character or just specific attributes when creating keys and breakdowns.
  • Change the number of frames between single or multiple keys and breakdowns with a button or numerically entering the change.
  • Eliminate manually counting in a complex timeline by automatically displaying each key or breakdown’s length.
  • Hit a button to switch between Maya’s Perspective camera and a shot camera you specify.
  • Save variations on the scene, automatically numbered, at any time right from the plug-in.
  • Switch interpolation of tangent types without opening the graph editor, or the default type without opening your overall settings.
  • Swiftly snap one object to another.
  • Clean up tools to remove redundant keys and fix overshot tangents.
  • Enhanced PlayBlast with identifying marks for more accurate review process.

Monday, October 20, 2008

End-to-End Game Development

Art Services :
3D modeling
  • Environmental model - Organic and inorganic sets and props model

Character model
  • Low polygon game model
  • High detail model for normal map and occlusion map generation

Rigging
  • Custom rigging and skinning for better controls over the ready made rigs

Texturing
  • High details texturing - Diffuse, Normal, Occlusion, Specular map textures

Animation
  • Loop animation for games with minute details whether it be Max or Maya
  • Animation from Motion capture data for more realistic animation

Saturday, June 2, 2007

MAYA FOR ALL