Hourse Trot

This is the trot cycle animation. Any suggestion. :)

JR - Horse Trot with Character - M05

Current stage - Main blocking of the character shown
Redid trot of horse from scratch, hopefully this looks and feels better.

Feedback would be stupendous!

Happy Animating!

Edit* Well his color is somewhat better, but his hair piece seems to be transparent. No idea what happened. :/

Nick Tejano's Semi Final Horse

Anything before Wed. will help. Thanks.

Semi Final Horse

Heres what I got so far. Any comments before Wed. will help so I can hurry up and turn it in.

INSTRUCTOR POST - MoCap tab updated

I've just added a bunch of material to the MoCap tab of the blog with lots of helpful notes on workflow and information about the assignment. Check it out now, and then put your name in the comments section of this post saying you've read the update. Blog participation contributes to your class participation grade!

INSTRUCTOR POST - MIXAMO Field Trip (Tue Mar/20, 6:30-10p)

As part of your ANM325 class, we'll be making a field trip to MIXAMO. This trip will replace our class on March 22nd; attendance will be taken. We'll join instructor, Brent Jentzsch, tour the studio and see the facilities in action. You may want to bring a camera. AAU no longer arranges shuttles for field trips, so you'll be responsible for getting yourself to and from Mixamo - try to carpool if you can.


Mixamo, Inc  
2415 3rd Street #239, 
San Francisco, CA 94107  
(415) 255-7455 ‎

Taylor Cat Trot

Here is my trot. I have not worked with the head or tail, but any advice for how to proceed from this point is welcome. Some concern areas for the trot are the back and forth arcs of the back (are they too much?),  the posing on the front feet so they don't look floaty, and anything else you all might point out. I am aware that the butt/tail region is severely deformed and that will be fixed. Looking forward to hearing what you guys think.

                                                                         --Taylor

Taylors Cat Run

I hope you all like the clubs because there is some serious strobe action going on here. The first video is of the cat running. I worked pose to pose on this because of how drastic the hip motion was, I didn't really know how to apply the layered approach. I am not against slowing it down, I'm just not really sure where to put the extra frame or 2.  I would love to hear any suggestions on posing ( I have not worked much with the shoulders or head, but any advice for the future is welcome), timing, or tips on how to reduce strobing in the instance of a very fast animation like this. Do you feel that the back has a good amount of roll from the rear hips to the front? 

Tim Li-Cat Trot

Here's my cat trot so far. Feedback would be amazing! Thanks!

Yu Yang - horse cycle WIP

Hi everyone, thanks for the critique on the last WIP, please add more suggestions to this one. I have offset the chest and hip curves already, need to counter animate the head and fix some stretches on the back leg. Thanks for the critique in advance~!

Bixby- This blog needs more cat cycles!

So here's my cat cycle. Critique away!!!

Ivania Arguello- Horse Trot

Hey, guys! Here is my horse trot cycle so far. I wanted to move forward and add variants, but figured I should get everyone's input before before moving on and adding the rider, just in case I needed to go back and fix some things.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Hourse Trot

Keep working on the cycle this week. Just understanded what is trot meaning :(

JR - Horse Trot - M03 - Moving forward

Worked on tZ, moving it forward in space, the present Cam was parented to the main controller.

The only thing thus far that is confusing, lies after the third loop and beyond. The feet begin to lose sync with translate. Anyone else having this problem?

Diego Garnica - Trot / Rider Slow mo.

Hello everybody:

I found a video that i think is pretty helpful for all of those who already are playing with the character on top of the horse!!

i find pretty interesting that the girl in this girl has a humping mov. on the horse!!
it seems pretty characteristic on the rider when the horse is trot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpmgolDsbQ

Happy Animating

Nick Tejano Trot/Rider 2 week 3

I believe I fixed some of the shoulder and right leg twitches on the horse.

Nick Tejano Horse Trot/Rider week3

Let me know what you think.

JR - Horse Trot - M02

Here is what I had for yesterday, finally got the time to post it.

Also lengthened it to ease the critiques.

Avaste ye mateys, have at me!

[but be gentle] D:

Yu Yang -Horse Trot WIP week 3

hi everyone, since we didn't have enough time to do critique for my piece in class,
please shoot any idea on this WIP here.
If you still think the pace is too fast for a trot, I'll consider to scale it down for next week.
Thanks a lot!

Yu

Sean - Victor Navone's Spline Tutorials

If you are afraid to use the Graph Editor and/or have no clue how to manage your splines, I highly recommend reading both of these tutorials by Victor Navone, Pixar vet and general bad-ass.

http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines1.htm
http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines2.htm

Michael - Slow Motion Horse link

Amelia gave me a great link on some slow motion Horse videos, so I am going to post it here.

http://www.youtube.com/user/naturhov

West - Spine Config

Keaton introduced me to Jack, who was able to show me where to unlock the options to the spine. Let me know if you have any questions, hope this helps everyone!

Nick Tejano - 2nd Horse Trot

Any advice on how to improve this would be nice.

Taylor Cat - Spine Workflow

Until we can figure out how to get the mystical hip and shoulder controls from the video, here's the closest workflow I have found that works for me.














First things first, Display > Show >Show Geometry > NURBS Curves
This way you don't get all the extra junk showing up like you would if you did Show > All
    Starting with the rear most star ( tippet_cat:spineAXtraA_1 ). This control is a good place to start as it controls the entire hip section of the cat.
    Now to operate the front I use the NURBS circle ( tippet_cat:spineUpD ), as it controls the sternum and shoulder area all together.
    Lastly, use the middle star shape ( tippet_cat:spineDXtraA_1 ) to adjust the center of the body. This control basically grabs the middle 5 pryamid handles for the spine and pulls with the greatest influence at the middle, and less influence further out in order to give a smooth bend. You will want to use the individual pyramids to refine the pose more.

     I think this is the closest to the blocking workflow shown in the MasterClass video as I can get without different handles. Ideally somebody could clean up the rig (make an alternate control set) by getting rid of the circle FK controls around the torso, converting the front circle into an easy to grab shoulder control, as well as converting the rear star into the same easy to grab shape for the hips. That way you are left with and IK for the hips , front of body, and mid torso, pyramids for fine control, and the front star to control the head. This is still not exactly whats in the video but if you really want to get into that, message me personally.

                                                                     Hope this Helps,
                                                                           Taylor

 Extra notes: While the star shape closest to the head may look like it's a good front of body control, it's not where you want to start. It effects the first three spine controls but the movement starts at the head and works down the spine, which is opposite of how you want to build your pose from the root outwards. It only effects the spine for deformation reasons as far as I can tell.

Also, if you haven't seen the video this I'm referencing, here it is. He goes over the spine around 19 minutes in.  http://vimeo.com/33660586

Anthony - Maya Tools that some might find helpful

Hi Everyone, I just found this Script on creative crash which is supposedly updates the graph editor with more functionality. It's called Graph Editor Redux. It also includes an X-sheet for doing pose tests and timing your poses for your animation.

There are videos on functionality on the Download page.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/animation/c/graph-editor-redux-digital-pose-test--2/comments#tabs

Sean - The Ultimate Guide to House Cats and KeepVid

Hey Everyone,

I found that Jack from the previous class found a great documentary on house cats. There are six parts total:

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCG8xUc1Io&feature=related
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpEB7YyK-Fw&feature=related
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8vmaiuL0qg&feature=related
Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dVIzWigNmU&feature=related
Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsnTpz2RCAk&feature=related
Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jJoLNxFm4&feature=related

I used KeepVid to download all of these. KeepVid is generally good for downloading Youtube clips. Just copy and paste the URL into the top bar on the page. Run the script that is prompt when you press download, and select your preferred file format (format options vary from clip to clip).

http://keepvid.com/

If anyone else has good downloading tactics, let's share!

Yu Yang - horse trot

Please give any feedback you have! Thanks !!

Nick - Horse Fact

I found something both interesting and annoying about the horse rig. If you rotate the "Rhett_bctrl" 180 degrees the horses butt will begin to wrinkle. I tried to have the horse trott the other way and found this out.

Tim Li - Cat Reference

This one talks about difference between walk and pacing.


Change in pace.


I also found an article about what the tail's of the cat means.
http://www.ivillage.com/interpreting-cat-tail-movements/7-a-220365

Nick - Basics of Posting

I found this on youtube last night I found it pretty helpful since you can see the horse trot from the sides and the back. They also play it in slow motion for you so it's easier to understand.

Nick - From: Timing for Animation

Heres some reference if you guys need some. I found this in a book called "Timing for Animation"