Object Animation

This week we looked at object animations using the timeline and keys. In the first animation the ball simply bounces. This is done by setting the first frame to have the ball on the ground, a middle frame (in this case 10) has the ball at its peak and then the final frame has the ball back on the ground. The software interpolates between these frames to create a smooth animation.




The second video is similar but this time the ball squashes like a real ball when it hits the ground. In this animation the first and last frames have the ball in the air and the middle frame has the ball on the ground where it has been scaled to look squashed.

Building a rig, and skining

Firstly we built a very simple mesh, the rough shape of a human body, out of cubes. We made this on one side of the x-axis, then mirrored the geometry onto the other side, to make sure that both sides were identical.

We then drew out a skeleton (rig) using Maya's Joint Tool, making sure that we left bends in the legs and arms, so that when we came to add IK chains to them it would know which way our joints should bend. Once the rig was built for one side of the body, we mirrored it over the x axis so it was identical for both sides of the body.

Next we skinned the mesh to the rig, by going to Skin > Bind Skin > Smooth Bind. This allows the bones to affect the vertices of the mesh, so when we move the IK handles, we can pose the body. We then keyframed a very (very) simple run animation, which you can see by clicking below.