Spring 2022 Anim Collection

Final Week

One minute, I was jotting down my animation plans for this spring semester, and then, all of a sudden, the semester is ending. Needless to say, to say that time flew by would be an understatement. I looked at my Fall 2021 semester work with dread, fearing I would get too carried away with my goals and repeat my mistakes again. 

With a shaking fist, I vowed to steer away from that path by tackling small projects. Particularly ones with less dialogue, more action-oriented, and range from 3 to 5 seconds each. I thought it was a strong goal, and I heavily admired a classmate for working on more than ten mini-animations from my other class, I gave myself the goal to do seven short animation projects. I could handle a walk animation, I could definitely do an idle, a run, and even an action scene if I wanted to. After all, as I thought to myself in mid-January, if I had done it before, then I would most certainly do it again. 

So... did I achieve my goal? 

In the easiest and most straightforward manner to say it, no, I did not. I didn't finish seven mini-animation projects, even when I narrowed it down to five mid-semester. However, in contrast to last time, I was able to steer myself away from the mistakes that I made last time. I was motivated almost the entire time and I was able to finish a few, and I was even motivated enough to put them into my animation collection. 

I will admit that it was because of my experience last semester that I was able to click to a new system that helped me keep my work flowing. What helped me tremendously was to focus on making shorter animation segments, making them 5 seconds max. Keeping them short allowed me to not get lost in my animation process, which was something I struggled with last semester. It became easier to balance my work with other classes, too, since I took four other classes this semester. Another class I was in - senior production - had an animation structure that really helped me map out my process. In fact, I was able to finish my animation works because I had a clearer picture of blocking, blocking plus, in-betweens, and splining. 

I still struggled with burnout, but I handled it much better this time, especially by focusing on a smaller project. Another huge motivator was using interesting rigs! It was a small feature, but by picking the rigs that caught my eye, I became more motivated to work on my projects. 

But alas, I did not accomplish my goals, and I did with reason. One of the biggest contributors to my failure was that my goals were too big and ambitious. Even though I had a hyper-specific schedule laid out on what my projects would be, I didn't think ahead of how I will balance that with my other classes. I also failed to schedule my plan to work throughout the week instead of cramming one or two days before the due date. I also didn't bother to think about the animation process: I completely glossed over the cleaning process, and with my goals organized the way it is, I expected myself to finish my animation works in two weeks with little to no attention to the clean-up. 

In conclusion, I can say that it was because of my goals that threw me out of bounds. Mid-semester, I realized that the plan wasn't working, and hence I became overwhelmed and struggled with burnout.

Meanwhile I already have two semesters of senior portfolio, I still have time to improve on my animation works. The biggest thing is that I will be more realistic with my goals: for example, I will stress quality over quantity. Instead of focusing on completing a bunch of animation projects at once, I will instead focus on putting two animated works into my animation collection. I will work on my patience and learn to not get lost in projects, reach out more to receive more feedback, and continue animating, especially in the summer! 

Overall, even though I couldn't work the way I wanted, I'm still happy that I made progress. Compared to last semester, it was a massive improvement! With this progression, I believe that I will accomplish my goals of being a better animator!

Week 13

For this week, I have been working a little on my Mystery Getting Mysterious animation, but I continue to struggle with the same issues from last week. For instance, I'm still having immense trouble with converting my arm controllers from FK to IK: meanwhile I know the controllers that convert them, I am confused on how to properly work with them, since they didn't work in the way that I am used to. For now, I'm settling to controlling the wrist, elbow, and arm individually, but there is very clear justling when she's supposed to be staying still.

I decided to readjust the timing altogether. I moved more of the key frames to make the delivery match my reference video more. It helped to really analyze subtle movement in my reference so that I could incorporate it in my video. Take it as studying each frame, if you will. Speaking of this, I have a classmate who informed me of a program that helps you analyze videos frame by frame to make the work experience easier. 

For individual critiques, I uploaded the angled view.

I also changed the item she's examining from a cube to a polygon thing. I thought it would more eye-catching for her to look at and still solid enough for her to swipe her finger across it. 

There are still a lot of mishaps in her movements. Although my biggest problem are her arms, there is still noticeable splining on her back that I need to fix and her facial expression/ lip gestures need movement. I don't plan on finishing this immediately, and if I cannot submit it right away, then I will work on it during the summer! There is a lot of potential with this piece, so I plan to put this in my demo reel before the semester ends. 

Week 12

The semester is coming to a close, but I am afraid to say that I have not been working on personal projects aside from my senior production animation. For this week, an professional animator from Dreamworks arrived to critiques, so I presented my best work in order to receive helpful critiques. As stated by him, my work needed the following adjustments: 

• simplify poses in "alright, let's try this" 
• keep hands static (one hand planted, move the other hand)
• make hand push one button
• stronger pose for when David poses
• make hand pose more natural when David holds the paper 
• action must start earlier in "Take one" 
• don't hold arms in "in a world" - make them move slightly, open palms more
• get arm pointing "where laughter..."
• lower arm slightly and point it higher in "no in a world..."
• hold gesture for a little bit to let facial animation in
• focus on David's silhouette! 

The biggest critique was that David's posing needed to be strong and readable because, for the majority of the time, the delivery fueling his actions was not that strong. 

What is presented here is my recent update. As shown, I have corrected a majority of the snappiness that was in David's movements, as well as correcting any glitching and polygon cutting (basically, when his limbs would cut through the furniture). I have also added some mouth movements for Stitch - although, his rig makes it difficult to control the mouth as well as David, so I had to make do with the occasional flapping of his mouth and the O-shape.

Mystery Getting Mysterious

I was able to work slightly on the animation. Especially for the first couple of seconds, I enhanced the posing to make her actions more readable. I luckily still had my old reference stored in my phone, so I have been referencing directly off of it to better replicate the poses. Unfortunately, my biggest issue was switching the controllers from FK to IK. It is definitely due to me not doing that method before, so doing it efficiently will take a little bit of time. 

It turns out that the original audio is not stored in my computer, so I will have to hunt for it online again. I personally feel like this animation can be delivered just as well without the audio if I were to enhance the girl rig's key poses. 

Week 11

By this point, I have incorporated most of the helpful feedback onto my idle animations. For my slow idle, I fixed the random tiptoe spline as well as adjusting her arms and shoulders to move with her body. I originally wanted her to have delayed blinking, but it didn't make sense to put it in and it looked more like an error, so I simply fixed her blinking to be in sync. As others have suggested, I also toned down her body rotation so that it isn't as severe. My biggest issue would have to be the movement of her left arm, but I am rather pleased with my work, and I am happy to move on with my next animation projects. 

My squirrel animation mainly consisted of adjusting the tail animation, since the controllers became erratic when I adjusted the keyframes. I have added very slight tail flickering as well, and extended the time where she stops and sniffs the button in front of her. At this point, I feel rather content with my work, so I plan to advance into my next animation project. 

 

I find myself struggling with my fast idle. I have incorporated most of the feedback and am quite satisfied, with the exception of the arms. I feel as if the arms do not match the momentum of the body, making her idle appear very off and uncanny. I will refer to my reference to fully capture what is being done. 

I am also considering adjusting her eyes upwards to make her stare straight ahead, not on the ground. My issue is that the eye controllers move independently from her body, so her eyes will fix on a certain point while her body moves (it makes her eyes move alot), but I think with certain controllers, it can be easily fixed. 

I have been looking at my old works from previous years, and I have stumbled across my Mystery Getting Mysterious animation from Fall 2020. There is potential in it, and a majority of the work is splined, but it need fixing. The animation includes very slow, splined movements and very sharp jerkiness. I want this animation to flow as smoothly as possible, so any feedback is appreciated. 

Week 10

I have received some very valuable feedback from my peers in order to improve my idle animation. 
Here are the following critiques listed:

• arms and shoulders need to be moved 
• tiptoes are splining and look awkward
• throw motion trail on COG, looks sharp but needs figure 8
• "figure 8" = horizontal and vertical translations are offset 
• rotate her head when she lowers 
• add some drag into her wrist
• fast idle
• make her arms rise as her body lowers down 
• her eyes are a little funky
• slow idle
• make first and last pose identical
• lessen rotation on shoulders 

I have not been focusing on my idle animation as of this week merely because I wanted to improve my senior group animation segment. 

I've been splining particular segments of my senior group animation, and meanwhile I feel as if I'm improving on my work, I am open to suggestions. 
I am slowly polishing David in his first scene, as I have put enough holds to keep his limbs from floating and snapping. I also fixed the snapping in Stitch's animation, and removed the segment where he was breathing. 

Week 9

Now that I have taken care of my work situation, I had more time to work on my projects, although not as much as I would have hoped. However, I believe I improved immensely on my idle animation! I tackled on two to further expand my abilities. 

One of them is slower-paced, therefore portraying an idle sequence more accurately. For this one, I rdrew out my poses by reorganizing my key frames in the Graph Editor. I tweaked portions of her foot and arms to draw out the anticipation poses. 

My second one is more quick-paced, and more of a fighting idle. Meanwhile my last work was monotone, this current one has more adjustments to her COG and back controllers. Her arm controllers are also moved so they won't be in sync with her body, and adjusted her to where she can tilt to prevent this flatness in her movements. 

After weeks of neglect, I have finally tackled my squirrel animation again! I seem to be quite content for the most part, with the exception being that the tail needs refinement and the scene where she observes the button needs to be longer. But after some critiquing sessions with my fellow classmates, they made me realize that I could do more, with examples being that I could play with her ears or add some quick glances or tail flickers to show a bit more personality. 

This image served to be a great reference for me to capture the tail movement, as that was the piece I struggled with the most in this work. 

However, when I adjusted my key frames to make the button scene longer, I realized I didn't select all the controllers I needed, hence the tail acts sporadic and does not match with the movements overall. I think this can be done by adjusting the frames in the Graph Editor.

Week 8

 I admit that I have not done much work due to taking care of issues at work and family matters, but I have worked more on my idle animation. During my last critique, I have received a lot of helpful feedback for my idle, and I have incorporated the advice into my old animation spline! 

Following my old reference, I paid attention to key poses first, and then the in-betweens. Pozzi's animation method has helped me immensely and has taught me to tackle projects with ease and efficiency. I allowed myself to focus on certain controllers at a time before moving on to the next, spaced her frames so that she moves more slowly and naturally, added more anticipation and swinging movements to capture the flexibility of this character, and even added small attributes to her, such as making her wink! Despite the small progress, I am pleased with my result, and I anticipate a critiquing session. 

I have difficulty with the end portion. Meanwhile I enjoyed my first segment, I have issues capturing that same flexibility in the last half - I feel like it's too splined still, and is in need of anticipation and overlapping when she moves her torso. 

 

As an added bonus, I have worked on my senior group project, specifically the blocking + (where I focused on key frames and in-betweens. I've done a lot of torso, arm, hand, expression, and mouth movement, and I believe I did a good job with adding anticipation. 

There are a lot of fixups, including the slamming button scene that needs to be scrapped entirely. Some of the interviewer's movements do not entirely sync with his audio, especially when he goes "Uhm, no 'in a world', Jack". I have also been critiqued that the camera angling for Stitch needs improvement - the microphone covers parts of his face, creating an imbalance. 

Week 7? 

Idle

For this week, I restarted my idle animation. Beforehand, I stated that I didn't like my reference, so I chose another one that seemed bouncier to me: 

My reference is Mario's idle animation

I still intend my character's idle stance to be more tense and alert, so I chose an idle that depicts a motive that screams "I'm ready to fight". What I have so far are merely the backbones or the key poses for my idle, so I have yet to add animation layers and space each keyframe equally. 

Mortality Dance

I admit that I didn't work too much on the squirrel run during break and afterward, but I was able to pick up another side animation for my own enjoyment. I will not be as strict with this one as I am with the squirrel hop and the idle, but I have decided to do Priya's Mortality dance scene from the movie Turning Red. I will be focusing on her dance sequence for the first couple of seconds. 

My biggest task is to implement the technique that I have learned from 495 - to block the key poses first, with the in-betweens and little details following it, eventually leading to the spline. 

So far, I'm not pleased with how quickly the animation is going. I believe I need to space the key frames more in the end, because what is included in the animation is the in-betweens in the first segment of the animation, and then the other half only has key poses. 

Week 6

Idle 

3/10

Admittedly, it was a little difficult to achieve what I wanted with my idle reference. I didn't like my movement, as I felt that there was too little bounce and energy, so tried to fix it in my animation by adding more frames than necessary, in hopes of making my work more detailed. 

Ultimately, in the end, I realized that it was not the amount of key frames present, but rather how well I posed them. Therefore, during the remainder of this week, I have focused on how well my poses were delivered during their blocking phase as well as reducing my frames to make my animation shorter. That way, it can just be looped. 

Rough blocking of the Idle animation. For some reason, Bonnie's face seem to glitch.

The problem can easily be fixed by reloading Maya (exiting and opening the program). It immediately playblasted like this, however.

Even though I'm unsatisfied with how choppy my idle animation looks, I'm far from done. I plan to get some revisions from my other peers in order to make my idle animation more believable and fluid.

Squirrel Hop

3/4

Upon my last animation review, I received a lot of helpful feedback from my peers: 

• The camera is too close to the squirrel
• Tail needs to be animated accordingly
• Squish squirrel down more when she lands
• Button needs to not lower before she hops
• Key pose for when she sniffs the button is too distorted and therefore unreadable
• Make camera stop when she sniffs the button
• Make stretch more forward instead of sideways
• The pose when she lands is a little stiff 

So far, I've really focused on how her tail moves. I referenced off of some tutorials and tail moving techniques to capture how it will move. My key is that the tail is more likely dragged by the squirrel herself, so there should be some kind of lag when it follows her. 

I fixed other attributes including her pose when she sniffs the button and preventing the button from lowering before she lands on it. 

Week 5

Idle 

3/1/22

Selecting Rigs

I ultimately decided on using my fight idle despite the girly one being more creative. Alas, I couldn't find any magical girl rigs that were suitable for me, so I opted for the fight idle. Initially, I had a couple of rigs planned to use, mainly the Ball Guy rig and the Annie rig. Due to complications importing into my Maya scene, I ultimately decided to go for the Bonnie rig, which I already had. It was also, in a way, fitting, considering that she was tomboyish in appearance to suit the tough fight idle. 

Ball Guy - his rigs didn't work when imported into the file. Apparently, I had to do additional steps before animating

Annie rig. I was concerned about her rigs, but I still wanted to test them out. As I imported her in, her limbs were broken.

Bonnie rig. I already had her and she's very easy to work with. 

Animation

For this week, I mainly focused on getting the key frames. I wanted to be as precise as I could rather than being too general so that I can better analyze what I'm actually working on. 

My biggest problem was replicating the flexibility and naturalness of my reference into my animation. In contrast, my animation appears to be stiffer despite spacing the key frames out. An instance of this is how there seems to be a slow in and slow out when swinging my arms; for my animation, it comes into a sudden stop. 

By next week, I plan to either enhance my key frames or add more. In this scenario, I want to add the motion where I wipe my mouth to add to the toughness. 

2/24/22

Near completion of my squirrel hop, I decided to jump to my second animation - the idle. Ideally, I will create it to be around 72 frames (3 seconds), and then loop it. 

I have recorded my references. One recording is more of a fight stance, while the other is a more feminine, girly sequence. I admit that my acting for the fight stance was rough. I will also refer to the following YouTube videos on idle animations: 

I will NOT be copying this animation. Since I have my own idle in mind, I will be using this video as a tutorial to better animate idle animations in general.

Some of these had idle animations that I tried to reenact in 3D

This will also be used as a tutorial to better animate idles

Week 4

Squirrel Hop

2/23/22

Some friends regarded the animation as "choppy", especially when the squirrel sniffs the button in curiosity, so I refined the animation a little. At this point, I animated the acorn by adding the squash and stretch. It has come to my attention that the acorn should spin as it hits the ground, but there were hiccups when animating it. 

I also started animating the tail. This part was actually pretty difficult considering that I'm more used to human character animation, so I looked up on the provided YouTube videos below and some online images of tail physics. The rigs for the tail were a little weird and I couldn't get what I wanted for the first couple of frames. 

Animating the tail proved to be a new challenge! But an engaging one nonetheless!

2/18/22

For today, I completed the basic squirrel hop, as well as adding minor details (the wobble as she landed, when she sniffs the button, and the acorn squash and stretch). A classmate of mine suggested that I create camera movement, in which I implemented into the scene. I'm pretty happy to say that, compared to yesterday, I made a lot of progress. 

The only part I couldn't get down is the acorn rolling onto the ground after hitting the squirrel and her staring at it in disappointment. Since I got the main animation down, I plan to work on her tail.

Week 3

2/17/22

Admittedly, not much progress was done since after the critiques. I was able to list off the major points my classmates said when viewing my work: 

• Add more squash and stretch in her bounces 
• Add more characteristics 
• Quick lookdown
• Move tail
• Make ears twitch
• Sniffing gestures
• Work on timing and anticipation 
• More key poses when acorn hits squirrel

Editing the squirrel hop means I get to readjust the key poses on the motion trail.

The most that I've done was redoing the hops since they were mainly blocked out. For the most part, I'm very proud that I adjusted the X and Y coordinates on the graph editor so it didn't look splined as the squirrel hits the ground. However, there is a bit of floating around frame 47 that I don't really know how to fix. 

It seems like this squirrel animation is going to take longer than I thought. Perhaps I underestimated my abilities and assumed that this would be a project I would get done in a snap, but that isn't the case. I'll extend the deadline to 3 weeks instead of 2 to see how my progress will go. After all, I'm not really upset since I want to take the time to put this in my portfolio. 

In the meantime, I'll ask some classmates how they were able to complete their projects quickly, since I also kind of want to tackle multiple animation projects this semester. 

2/12/22

Since the squirrel rig is pretty popular, there was little trouble finding inspiration for ideas. Tutorials were not that hard to find, but my favorites were "The Free Animation Rig" from AnimationMentor and "Blocking and Timing" by Foxy Fern Animation.

Week 2

2/11/22

Following my list of prompts for my spring semester, I decided to start off with a simple squirrel animation to help me ease into animation. My goal for this is to focus on squash and stretch features and the timing. 

The rig used for this assignment. It is free and available here.

Here are the animations I have worked on since winter break. I added additional material such as the ground and the lighting, but the hop was the main key. I had issues animating the tail since it looks stiff and doesn't entirely follow the gravity. To fix this, I will better understand the principles of animation and watch some tutorials, particularly with the squirrel rig.

Because the squirrel is a character, she needs to display some characteristics. The short will depict her curiously hopping over to a big red button in which a single nut falls on her head, so her characteristics will be: curiosity, intrigued, and disappointment. 

So I won't get lost whenever she hops and lands, I had to add a motion trail. It makes the job way easier for me!

I blocked out the entire scene plus smoothed out her first jump. I have the following plans for next Friday: 

• accentuate her squash and stretch 
• smooth out the parts when she turns her head 
• smooth out the part when she wobbles on the button 

I'm currently not focused on animating her tail right now, only because I want to get that squash and stretch first.