Quick Trick: Track Those Arcs

OK, so poses are real important, timing is really important, in fact it seems there are 143,311 things that are really important in animation. One of my favourite out of the huge principle pile however is the concept of arcs. More specifically, I mean that practically all movement on your characters should describe a clean and natural arc through 3D space ( or mostly 2D really - unless like me, you work in games ).

To be honest I`ve known about arcs for a while, but only recently have I started to use them. Oh man how important they are. To discuss WHY they're important aesthetically would take all day, so I`m gonna stick to one aspect of their use for now - and thats mainly just keeping a handle on how smooth and dynamic your actions are.

Using a visual arc tool in Maya can really REALLY help you with your motions... during animation, but also afterwards for finding exactly where all those tiny pops and glitches are. The curve can help you see how smooth and 'organic' your motion is, and the spacing between the objects that represent each frame can visually show your spacing which is super useful.


note: don't confuse this with a "path" animation where an object is constrained to that path. The sphere is animated freely, and the curve updates as changes are made to describe the motion through space.

Some very basic examples of using arcs

• on everything ( arcs don't necessarily have to be smooth curves ! )
  
• on walk cycles - see the path of action on the feet , and the ease-in and outs of the foot plants.
• use a trail on the tip of a character's nose to make sure the head movements are natural and spaced well.
• on a jump - see the gravity through the spacing, and path of action visually with the trail.
• keep track of a complex arm movement, by using a trail on the wrist, and another on the elbow.
  

If you've ever used Maya's motion trail tool before, you probably know its a little suspect. I used 3DStudio Max when I was at Ubisoft, and one thing I did like about the package was it's really fantastic motion trails. So I wrote one for Maya that essentially mimics it exactly - and its also a little more straight forward and visual to use than Maya's own ones.


Trails will update dynamically as you change animation on your object. You can have any number of trails per scene, and even on varying frame ranges of the same object.

You can get it here: cMotionTrail

The importance of cleanliness

I didnt really want to start off this blog with a "techie" post, but recently its become very clear to me how important a good clean visual workspace is, and I wanted to post something up that people will find useful. By the way, I don't mean making sure you wipe those coffee rings, or vacuum the crumbs out of your keyboard, I'm talking about visual clarity in all that clutter that fills your screen when animating.

Game animation comes complete with a worrying, but unavoidable lack of emphasis on silhouette. Practically every game today is set in a 3D environment, and characters and events are often seem from almost every angle you can imagine, as well as from vastly differing distances. Because of this I've nearly always animated without a camera reference or a set "shot" that is designed from layout or storyboard, working merely in a perspective panel and orbiting constantly around my character as I create poses and movements. Due to working in this manner, I've never really animated in a 'pose to pose' way or spent much time thinking about it.

Then of course, when you start to animate a shot from a pre-determined viewpoint, the power and absolute necessity of silhouette, staging and composition hit you like a train wreck. I noticed that Maya has no real "animation viewport" and found that working in tear-off panels, or trying to mix and match different views within the program was messy and confusing:


mess !

To remedy this I bought another monitor and wrote the "animation viewport" I feel is crucial to working on a cinematic shot. I have one screen setup as the interactive viewport where I rotate around freely and manipulate the character controls, and another screen almost entirely devoted to a single clutter free and clean representation of the shot I am working on. It works wonderfully. I find because of this I am much less hindered by things being "in the way" and switching between different views and states with Maya... that ultimately gives me more brain time to concentrate on the performance. ( by the way - you don't have to fork out and go dual LCD. I have two 20" CRT monitors, and yeah they take some space but they cost me under $200 for both, and work like a charm. )


much cleaner and more workflow intuitive ( the script creates the large window with the black borders )

I have put this tool online so you can download it and use it if you like. The link has more info on some of the features. You can grab it here:

shotView for Maya

If you're anything like half as messy as me, this will help you out a treat.