Going Live Update 10/03/23

Going Live Update                                                                                                                                      10/03/23

Figure 1: Rendering tests

Prior to the next meeting with Wild Child, I've been experimenting with the Kayla rig in an attempt to make a more refined strut cycle.  In order to make the arm movements neater and more refined, I've decided that for the strut, it's better that the fists are closed because it shows that the character displays more confidence, as well as the arms being straight against the body to avoid bad arm manoeuvres when viewed from the front.  The lack of central poses in the strut cycle make the animation process harder than the vanilla walk cycle which had poses that were easier to map out.  The strut cycle has four poses between the start and middle and four poses between the middle and end meaning that whilst the waist position can be copied and pasted, there is no definitive pass pose yet, which makes it hard to make these sections fluent.  I must also confess that I've been doing the poses in the masculine style with a female character, mainly because the characters in our story are both male.

Figure 2: Homemade strut walk cycle

The double bounce walk cycle was made by simply adapting the standard walk cycle and replacing the up poses with down poses to make a bouncing effect, as well as by spreading out the cycle from 24 frames to 33 frames to make the animation slower and the bounce movement less sudden.  I've also found methods of animating the camera to perform an orbiting shot and other camera tricks.   This method will be perfect for Nikko, since this movement will easily match his persona, whilst the strut cycle we've agreed on for Tinny will be harder to pull off.   

Figure 3: Double bounce walkcycle

Figure 4: Maya Graph Editor: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fforums.autodesk.com%2Ft5%2Fmaya-animation-and-rigging%2Fonly-purple-curves-in-graph-editor%2Ftd-p%2F9559946&psig=AOvVaw1XNRtOeMbrkeB2ajCtpX9c&ust=1678534932018000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCLCI7ISk0f0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

I've also discovered how tricky the Maya graph editor is.  Whilst it is essential to master, the curves on it do require a lot of patience and care other wise the movements can become erratic.  I'm going to have to learn Maya for many years to fully avoid these sorts of shenanigans. The main trick is to make the tangents flow into each other organically whilst keeping an eye on the figure movement. The main problem child I've found with the Kayla rig at the moment is the right arm which is getting obnoxious and hard to fully control.  I really need a tutor overview to get this sort of thing ironed out.

Figure 5: Strut compilation