Week 5

The first lesson this week I was introduced to the software Motionbuilder. Like Maya Motionbuilder is made by Autodesk and is used in video games. When first loading up the software we had a selection of files on udo to help demonstrate the various ways of working in Motionbuilder. When first looking at Motionbuilder it seemed like it was going to be really complicating and still kind of is looking back. The main part you notice when starting up the software is the viewer, this is where you'll see your animation taking place. This is very similar to the scene viewer in Maya. However that for me was where the similarities ended. Everything else just looked foreign to me. We were given a piece of animation captured using motion capture. We would then be able to attach this to a model of a character given to us on udo. This was unfortunately as far as we got with the lesson and with Motionbuilder. I have since then downloaded the student version of Motionbuilder and I plan on looking into the software further in my spare time. Below are some screenshots from the lesson showing the various rigs we used.

Also this week I finished recording the last video reference material I needed for the rest of my animations. Now I could begin working on my next animation ready for the group presentation next week. Below are the videos to help with my crouching, walk cycle and turning around animation.

 

 

I began work on my second animation with the deadline being the presentation on Tuesday. The second animation I did was the ninja crouching and opening the window. In the scene to demonstrate him opening the window, I made a simple (very simple) window setup.

This is no where near finished and there's still more I would like to fine tune on the animation. However the ways it looks at the minute, I am happy with how it looks.

                                        

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The YouTube video above is a animation progression research video for the film 'Horton Hears a Who'. The video displays 4 mini progression videos showing a video of the animator acting out the scene, early block out animation. Then finally showing the animation near complete and finishing off with the animation all rendered in the lighting. This video gave me a better understanding of how to actually go about this process for my own animation. This was the first time we were properly acting out our animation to help plan and help us while animating.