A Time Apart: Fred Rig Testing - Hot Animation

Carrying on from last week's lesson, now that my rig limits are corrected I'm ready to actually animate. The action is meant to be hot, so I went for wiping sweat of a brow and pant sort of thing.

When I got Alan's help with it he showed me how to weight the character and switch its stance, note to self when animating sort the middle out first as the middle tells you about how the rest of the body should be posed. In the video below I tried to add on to Alan's correction the follow through bit, I also put in some brow movement and a blink.

A Time Apart: Animation Practice with Fred Rig

In today's lesson we was practicing animation, we picked numbers which corresponded with small actions like a sneeze or burp. I picked 'when you've forgot something' and decided to use my Fred rig to practice animating on since he is different from Moom. Using my own rig allowed me to 1) practice and 2) fix any problems with my rig.

I had a couple problems - mainly the CTRL limitations were too restrictive so I had to free up movements a bit more also I had some of the coat skinned to the neck joint which need correcting too, I think everything is fixed now as far as I'm aware.

To change the limitations I had to delete my animated keyframes otherwise the rig would break so I don't have much to show for the lesson.

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 7

The pose needs more weight shifted to the left because the person is not completely centered, hands need more rotation upward and a bit of twist in the hip is needed.

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 6

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 5

I am happy with this pose for 5 minutes however, I forgot to twist the chest and hips.

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 4

I can immediately see improvements that need to be made, such as Moom needs to be leaning forward more by putting more of a forward curve in the spine and making more of a stretch in the back leg, however, for 5 minutes I think I did alright.

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 3

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge 2

I can see a lot of bits are inaccurate such as the fingers aren't bent, the hips should be lower to give more bend in the knees and there needs to be more curve in the spine.

Animation: 5 Minute Speed Posing Challenge

As part of animation practice, I took part in the challenge of posing Moom in a pose of my choice in 5 minutes and posting it regardless of its unrefined result - this was the outcome and below is the reference. I can see there's a lot that needs improvement especially the spine but over time I hope to improve my speed.