Games Animation 

This blog is going to be set out two different ways - There will be a post for each weekly task and and overall post for the cyclic animation side of the project which will be broken down into sets of posts one for research and one for the animation

Games Animation - Week One - Standing Cyclic Breathing

Kay is a catwalk model/international Spy for higher, specialising in tracking down VIP targets - her most recent work being in the fashion industry investigating missing models and several other things, She hates this assignment and is really

The first task for week one is to test are rig by creating a simple 50 key framed animation 

Games Animation Week Two - Walk Cycle and Trax Editor

This weeks animation is all bout using the Trax editor in Maya to blend to animations together using Character Sets

First Task Walk Cycle

The first part of this task was to create a walk cycle - I choose to base this upon my main project - Catwalk Catfight, I set up the aniamtion so that it has 30 keyframes, and that the body is in the same position at frame 1/0 that it is in frame 30.

So how does the Trax Editor Work?


Task three - Pushing a Block

The next task is designed for us to get used to using the Trax editor and character sets as well as the options available to us as a whole

I create the four poses above based upon the shape of my rig, 4 different thumbnails, and specifically stong poses that will allow me to create string poses in my Animation

Task Four - Motion Capture and Motion Builder

This weeks task is all abut using Motion capture with Motion builder

Motionbuilder is not that dissimilar to Maya - similar controls, viewpoints and tools

Using File, Motion File Import i import a series of pre caught motion capture footage - These show up as blue 'Markers' in the viewport.

Hitting CTRL + W will change the view so you can see all the markers in the Viewport

The next step is to import an Actor into the scene, this will take the place of the final character Mesh, You will find this is the asset browser under characters

This is what the actor will look like in the Viewport

Next I line the mesh up as best as I possibly can to the 'Markers'

After this i create a marker set, this allows you to assign the markers to body parts

You drag the corresponding markers to there corresponding actor sets, In this case , LfFtHead. LfBkHead, RtFthead, RtBkHead are assigned to the marker for the head, Its important to note not all markers are needed for this exercise, From here I need to merge the character I plan to use the Motion capture data on