Maya: Run

This cycle was actually easier than I thought, I just 

made sure I got the amount of frames right, to do this I cut the amount of frames down to 12 instead of 24 so that the speed in which he ran at would make sense and then I quickly put together a sketch of what each frame I would use and where, in total I used 5 key frames and let the rest roll on with itself, this worked more than I excepted and I am happy with the outcome.

run cycle sketch

Maya: Jumping Cycle

With the jumping cycle, like the walking cycle it was just about taking time but also making sure that animations on each key frame was very fluid and is as realistic as possible, the main problem that I ran into was just making the actual animation of the rig looking real, I hopefully have made this possible.

Maya: Walking Cycle

So after having playing around with Maya for a good while now I have finally completed the walking cycle so that it looks as realistic as possible. The only real problem I found myself running into is that it just takes time, you have to make sure you look at the rig from all angles to make sure that you have got the character walking in a good fashion and that nothing looks out of place. 

I wanted to render it into a video however I am unfamiliar with how to set this up so for now I created a plane polygon just where the grid height is, created 4 walls using the cube polygon and made sure that when i spun the camera around the character i could get enough angles of him walking, then i opened up Fraps and used this to record, it's the most sophisticated way of recording but it done the job, so here it is:

The only thing that I have changed since recording is how the leg when in the middle of the walking cycle then comes back down to more of a straight leg rather than bent.

Maya: Character, walking

So after learning the fundamental basics of Maya and how to use it using the animation tools to create a bouncing ball, we then learned how to animate a 'funky' looking character to appear to be walking, on the face of it it looks a bit confusing but overall i found i have picked up Maya fairly easy and i am really starting to enjoy it, so much so i i find the overall feeling rewarding knowing that i have managed to create a walking character.

Maya: the beginnings

So far we have learnt the basics of Maya, from the tool bars to complex options that you have to choose from, so far we have created a ball simply bouncing up and down but using squash and stretch to add realism, to watch it in motion makes me feel as if I have created something that is so simple and yet making it tests my knowledge of Maya and animation. So far I have been enjoying learning the fundamentals of animation and Maya, it’s nice to get a chance to try out something different other than art work for a game. Although it poses to be complicated at first glance I feel the more i indulge into the heart of Maya the more I find its getting easier and more enjoyable.