3D Animation, Poses, and Painting Weights
To get used to moving a character into different positions within Mata, we imported a character from Mixamo to work on. So, I chose a horrifying monster/creature (for comedic value), and had to position him on different ways to look like certain famous people.
So I had to do:
As another activity, we had to create our own robots. I went for quite a human like robot, (two arms and two legs) his name is Ro-bot, and I made him quite small and cute, he would only serve as a companion to help with everyday basic tasks, and to just be a general friend to whomever owned him.
So I had to do:
- Lara Croft
- Naruto
- Superman
- Usain Bolt
- Wonder Woman
As another activity, we had to create our own robots. I went for quite a human like robot, (two arms and two legs) his name is Ro-bot, and I made him quite small and cute, he would only serve as a companion to help with everyday basic tasks, and to just be a general friend to whomever owned him.
Walk Cycle
For the animation side of things, we got to pick any animation we wanted. I went for a walk cycle which wasn't as easy as I initially thought, I think I managed quite well still though, as the animation loops quite well, and it does look like she's walking. Things I would change to improve it would be, spacing out the key frames a bit more so she doesn't walk as fast, as it's more of a brisk walk at the moment, and possibly adding more key frames in general so the whole animation is a lot smoother.
For the animation side of things, we got to pick any animation we wanted. I went for a walk cycle which wasn't as easy as I initially thought, I think I managed quite well still though, as the animation loops quite well, and it does look like she's walking. Things I would change to improve it would be, spacing out the key frames a bit more so she doesn't walk as fast, as it's more of a brisk walk at the moment, and possibly adding more key frames in general so the whole animation is a lot smoother.
Painting Weights
To make sure the character moved properly, I had to paint the weights. Doing this, means that each limb moves correctly, and doesn't have any influence on any other limbs it shouldn't have. For example, sometimes when you import a character, if the legs are too close together, the automatic weights that have been painted, can sometimes think they are linked together, meaning when one leg moves, it drags parts of the other leg with it. This is why we need to manually paint the weights on. For me the process took a long time, as I kept getting fatal errors on Maya 2015, which I couldn't do anything about, so I kept losing progress and having to start all over again. In the end, I think I managed to get a decent flow to the weight painting, and none of the parts interfered with others that shouldn't do.
Also, to make sure my character moved properly, I had to insert IK handles and constraints. The IK handles made the legs and arms move and bend in a more natural way, and the constraints kept them from bending in ways they shouldn't. For example, the knee might bend backwards instead of forwards without a constraint. The way the joints in the mesh are created also helps which way the limbs bend, so you have to have a slight offset in the ways you want the arms or legs to bend to make sure they bend right.
To make sure the character moved properly, I had to paint the weights. Doing this, means that each limb moves correctly, and doesn't have any influence on any other limbs it shouldn't have. For example, sometimes when you import a character, if the legs are too close together, the automatic weights that have been painted, can sometimes think they are linked together, meaning when one leg moves, it drags parts of the other leg with it. This is why we need to manually paint the weights on. For me the process took a long time, as I kept getting fatal errors on Maya 2015, which I couldn't do anything about, so I kept losing progress and having to start all over again. In the end, I think I managed to get a decent flow to the weight painting, and none of the parts interfered with others that shouldn't do.
Also, to make sure my character moved properly, I had to insert IK handles and constraints. The IK handles made the legs and arms move and bend in a more natural way, and the constraints kept them from bending in ways they shouldn't. For example, the knee might bend backwards instead of forwards without a constraint. The way the joints in the mesh are created also helps which way the limbs bend, so you have to have a slight offset in the ways you want the arms or legs to bend to make sure they bend right.