Mommy, Why is That Man Walking So Funny?

I come to you with another blog update! Two in one month? That has to be a record!

Xaelander2 test/demo: Atlas' Kitchen from Michael Navarro on Vimeo.

So, my adventure with Xaelander continues! I have to admit that so far, I'm quite impressed with Xaelander's capabilities as an animation tool; it's just fantastic for laying down the foundation of the animation you're hoping to create. You want the character's arm to whip around in 20 frames while his body goes the opposite direction? How would it look if it moved another way...? What about if his arm just flopped around? No problem! You can visualize it in realtime using your hands, without wasting more time by following the traditional methods. 


However, I do admit that at first, I was having my doubts about Xaelander's efficiency in animating a character. Sure, it worked well with animating a simple object or a camera, but how would moving the different parts of a character work out? My first few tests were discouraging, to say the least. With the varying ways in which character rigs are built, the controller curves for numerous characters weren't behaving consistently due to a conflict between the local rotation axis of the objects and the world axis. 


Indeed, it was seeming hopeless.... until I had to remind myself that being open-minded is probably a good thing, and I'm glad I did. Using my rigging knowledge, I was able to create a system to effectively move the controller curves of any character rig around without any concern to their local rotation axis. The solution is rather simple, and yet it made a world of difference. Before I go on, I just wanted to express how exciting this is. Did I forget to mention that Xaelander rocks?


The solution is easy: create two "representative" objects (preferably locators), color-code them, and name them appropriately to match their real-world counterparts. Attach your two physical points to these virtual ones, and you'll know exactly where your hands are in the Maya world space without moving your desired object around quite yet. This way, you'll get a great feel for the scene's layout in relation to your physical workspace and be able to tweak the scale of the movement, as well as offset the position of the object from your actual location in the workspace if need be. Once you've set this up to your liking, constrain the character rig controller of your choosing to one of your virtual points (aim constraint for FK controller, parent constraint for IK controller). I recommend when doing the constraint that you leave the "maintain offset" option enabled - the reason for this being that no matter what the LRA (local rotation axis) of the controller is, it'll follow your hand the way you perceive it, not stray away. Now, with this set up, you have two options: go the mocap route or the traditional animator route. 


If taking the mocap route, what you do is capture your movement of the locator, and the character's rig controller will follow if constrained correctly. You'll find it actually feels like a puppet string! Once you've achieved a peformance you're in love with and have recorded it via the Device Editor, select the rig controller and simply key every few frames (1's, 2's, 3's, etc) to your liking; this way, you'll have much cleaner curves to work with. Now, at this point you can either delete the constraint, or detach the physical point from the locator and leave it untouched to maintain your original motion capture data to have something to fall back on. Repeat this method for as many parts of the character you'd like to animate and you'll have your character animated in no time!


If taking the traditional route, just pose the body part to your liking and keyframe either the "representative" or the rig controller itself without recording your movement (obviously). Move the timeline forward to the next desired time and repeat. I'm not a big fan of this method, but I know there are those out there that prefer to work in the old school and maybe want to have better control over the exact positioning/timing in their animation.  Whatever your desired method, I'm sure you will find animating and posing the character with your actual hands is much more comfortable and effective. 


My next step is to write a script to automate this process and speed things up, but that's for another day. When that day comes, you all will be the first to see it!














I've come to the realization that my rigging reel isn't quite up to par and could use an overhaul. There, I said it. It's going to be almost a year since I graduated, and I'm still out in the world hunting for a job! It's time for a new approach, because it's obvious what I'm doing now isn't working. 


The point of a character rig is not only to allow the animator to manipulate an otherwise stiff character, but also to allow for desirable deformations - with emphasis on good deformations! I know, all you see in my rigging reel are some clips of controllers jerked around (one by one) in Maya at lightning speed, followed by some clips of the character being animated. The only decent examples of character deformations are demonstrated in these animation clips, and they make up a relatively small percentage of the reel! This is due to the fact that my focus was primarily on trying to show off the "cool" features of my rigs - what creative solutions I came up with to rigging issues. Character deformations took a backseat, and that will no longer be the case! 


The most common critique my reel has received is, "you need to show the characters deforming more, and they need to be good." I hear you guys, and it's about time I actually go through with your suggestions!  Not only will you see more animation, but you will also see better demonstration clips. 


So, with that said, I've chosen to start off by developing an animation for the Camel Warlord. Right now, the character is not animated anywhere in the reel, and you only see him standing on a turntable in a static pose before it cuts to a clip of him being posed in Maya. It's time to replace that turntable animation with something better: a walk cycle. Yes, a walk cycle. He's a rather low poly character that would most likely appear in a video game, so why not show off a short, cycling animation that would most likely suit him?

Camel Warlord Walk Cycle WIP (Xaelander2) from Michael Navarro on Vimeo.

Of course, for this animation,  I'm taking advantage of Xaelander2 to get my motion down. It's made life much easier! It's not the greatest animation in the world by any means, but it certainly shows off the character deforming.x5