Learning Maya Animation

I recently finished teaching a group of high school students how to animate using Maya. They did a very good job learning as much as they could in 7 weeks and not one of them had to be pushed into the software. Here's their first CG animation using a simple character called the Johnny the Box project.

While teaching this class, I learned a lot as well. For one, most students begin animating a shot starting at frame one. They don't realize that their audience needs a little time to think about what they are watching. I had to slow them down and stress the importance of holding on the beginning shot for at least 10 frames before moving the character. One main key to animation is learning about timing.

You want your audience to see the character and you should hold on the shot longer, to allow the audience to see what the character is doing or what is their attitude. Also after a character is moving about, we need to hold to see him think or react. In 2D animation, there is a term called "moving hold". This is explained by Jeff Lew using 3D. The moving hold is where the body is in motion and then slows down but never completely stops. It moves into a pose and slowly keeps moving until it moves out of that position. In 2D, this was done in a lot of close up shots of the character's face to keep the drawing alive and not turning into a still drawing.

It was a good class since a lot of the kids would also learning other parts of the program like Dynamics. I would do a double take with a moving hold when I would see someone had created an animated fireball. Then I would ask them, "how did you do that?"

the Nose sequence

This is the beginning of the animation from "One in a Billion" which I have referred to as "the Nose sequence" for lack of a better description. This is rough animation and I've been using After Effects for compositing the various segments to create one long scene. I only hope I am doing this right since there are still more animations to edit together to make up the final segment.

Rough Animatic_ Airport Sequence

This is a rough animatic sequence which was all based on the soundtrack and very little direction from the client. The character designs were later changed to a more cartoony style. Unfortunately, this sequence was later turned into a series of still storyboard frames which the client preferred.

Modelsheets

Sketchy Vector Lines in ToonBoom

I'm working on a project where the client wants a sketchy textured line. I've been doing a lot of tests in ToonBoom Studiov6 and have come up with a possible solution. Since you can only get thick and thin vector lines without any added textures in the line, I am using two layers to make up the line and the line texture.

The first layer contains thin gray lines drawn quickly to give the scratchy line texture. This layer can be done in the blocking or rough animation stage, but instead of hiding this layer you move it above the clean line layer to break up and add texture to the animated line.

Here is a test where:
 A) The lines that animate will only move, but there is only one drawing during a hold.
 B) 3 line layers cycle above during the held drawing, thus keeping the drawing alive when its not moving.