Comments on Animation Tips & Tricks: What Is "Layered" Animation and How Does It Work? ...

merciiiiiiiiii

2010-07-05T14:49:05.471-07:00

merciiiiiiiiii

Thank you very much Shawn, I can't wait to use...

2009-11-16T07:29:47.167-08:00

Thank you very much Shawn,
I can't wait to use this tecnique,
I did not know about it and seems to be fantastic.

Mr. Kian, before jumping to the Maya you need to s...

2009-11-16T04:44:51.058-08:00

Mr. Kian, before jumping to the Maya you need to spend a lot of time on planning , as u said that 'How would you know that the character takes 5 steps to get to the second key in Maya' it sounds like u are too much depends upon software, if you plan it first on a paper or by shoot yourself on a cam whatever suits you that will save your precious time...........

Hey Jason Thanks for your comment I’d like to cla...

2009-11-13T16:41:23.862-08:00

Hey Jason

Thanks for your comment
I’d like to clarify more of my problem.
I went through Animators Survival Kit again as you said. In The Illusion of Life, Even Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas recommend to use both Pose to Pose and Straight Ahead together. But let me explain the pose to pose in a walk cycle in two ways. As you know there are 4 main keys for a walk. If I want to animate a walk cycle using Pose to Pose in Maya, what I would do is to make the first Key for the Contact then 2nd key for “Down”, then the next would be the “Middle” and then I go for “Up” and the last one is another Contact (Reverse legs and arms) and I can continue making poses or just do a straight ahead and it just look really good and perfect to me without any feet dragging on the ground.
The second way is bothering my mind because I saw a video tutorial from Gnomon at my friend’s house. The animator created the first pose (in this example is Contact) and his next pose was the other contact (reverse legs and arms) and then he created the other key poses like “Down”, “Middle” and “Up”. But if I go with this way it definitely results in dragging. Please check page 64 of Animator’s Survival Kit. How would you know that the character takes 5 steps to get to the second key in Maya? Well Richard filmed it and because it is paper animation so he could place the second key pose at its right place! Does that make any sense to you?
Well I hope you got me and I hope to hear from you or anybody else soon ☺
Thanks again Shawn for your tips

Happy animating everyone!

Thats a great tip, Shawn. Sounds intriguing and in...

2009-11-12T18:17:34.384-08:00

Thats a great tip, Shawn. Sounds intriguing and intimidating at the same time. Would be nice to see an example of a shot using this approach.

I'm just AM student myself, but I wanted to gi...

2009-11-12T17:18:14.322-08:00

I'm just AM student myself, but I wanted to give a tip to Kian.....

Pose to pose can be very tricky, but if you are still new to animation, I really encourage you to try it more, like Shawn said. It's one of the best ways to get started really understanding how the 12 principles of animation work. Like Shawn said, it's the best place to start.

Anyway, when you say that you get feet dragging on the ground when doing pose to pose after adding inbetweens, I'm guessing it's because you need to add more break downs. If you don't already have it, get the Animators Survival kit and check out pages 61-67 for a great explanation of the different methods, and a break down of how to effectively use pose to pose. So, I think your issue (foot dragging) is not a downfall of pose to pose or Maya, it's an incomplete use of pose to pose. Give it another try and you'll see!

Jason

Thanks for the tip I have problem with doing pose...

2009-11-12T16:41:53.431-08:00

Thanks for the tip
I have problem with doing pose to pose in Maya. it results in draging feet when later I put the in-betweens. So I just draw the poses in a paper and animate straight ahead in Maya which I dun know if it is the right way. I know that every animator has their own way but Maya might give an option to key the poses in Maya rather than paper? thanks anyway

Excellent tip Shawn! I had the wrong idea about th...

2009-11-12T16:11:14.791-08:00

Excellent tip Shawn! I had the wrong idea about the "layered" approach this whole time! Thanks!

Have you ever tried the layered approach with some...

2009-11-12T15:38:00.255-08:00

Have you ever tried the layered approach with something where the foot placement is a little less flexible? Like walking down stairs. Maybe it doesn't make any difference?