Workflow Tutorials

These are the workflow tutorials from my old site. Until I get things squared away with wordpress spam I am gonna have to post things here.


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Workflow Idle
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Run time: 5:08 Actual time spent: 68:00

Notes:

This idle is very subtle in the movement and I might want to emphasize it a bit more. Ill find out once I see it in the engine.

We start this workflow project off with a standard weapon-sheathed-standing-idle. This is generally the first animation you make for any character for a multitude of reasons. The main reason I start off with an idle is to get accustomed to the rig.

Rig notes: More often than not, you will not be working with the same rig over and over again, (though biped transfers from rig to rig, often times you will have more trouble than its worth) and will find yourself having to relearn new rigs everytime. Your rigger has his/her own style, and after months of working with their rigs you will generally learn their nuances. They will also generally take requests from the animators, giving you more knowledge of the characters limits. Push your rig to the max. Try to break it. This way you will have a much better understanding of the limits of what that character is capable of. I would also suggest learning basic rigging. IK/FK switches, feet planting setup, skin envelopes, knowing all of this will better familiarize you with how a character ACTUALLY works, and thus make your animation that much better.

Workflow notes: For an idle, I generally am just learning the rig so I will take this one a bit differently than I tackle most anims. I still do it heirarchy based (ie. start with the pelvis and move outward), though many times I will fine tune and tweak as I go rather than block it in first.



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Workflow Walk
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Run time: 5:02    Actual time spent: 89:00

Notes:

Though this walk cycle was made very quickly, on a studio project you might do 2 or 3 more iterations to the fine tuning depending on what your sup, art director or animation director require. The workflow is what gets you to the point to show them, the final anim at the beginning is post-tweaking.

Ah, the dreaded walk cycle. Every student's arch nemesis. I can tell you from experience; many companies will ask for a walk cycle right up front. In a character test I have had to do; stealth walk cycle, sad walk cycle, happy, pissed off, injured, etc...And thats JUST for the character test! So get this down to a science. Every character is different and some will need more pop than others. Realistically it comes with experience and actually DOING it. Weight distribution is a huge factor and something you should really focus on.


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WorkflowRun
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Run time: 5:18 Actual time spent: 98:22

Notes:

I put around 20 minutes of extra finesse after the video, though felt that since this was mostly subtle tweaks, it was unnecessary to show these tedious subtle movements in the actual video itself.