Homework for Monday!

Turn in all ball bounces by 8:00PM tonight!

Using what you learned about blend shapes, make a short animation for Monday!  The theme of your animation is this: "Give an object human characteristics!"

The character can do whatever you see fit! Jumping, running, rolling... anything goes!  My only request is that the action is CLEAR and EASY TO UNDERSTAND! You are training your communication and your animation skills this weekend!

A good workflow for your animation:

• Keep a sketchbook nearby for notes. Once you have your idea...
• Build your object.
• Build your blendshapes.
• Set up your blend shape node. (the list of actions for your blendshapes!)
• Animate your movements first.
• Animate your blend shapes next!

Remember: You can view your keyframes three different ways!

• Right Clicking the timeline, selecting Display Key Ticks, and selecting "Active and Selected" to view all selected ones, or "Channel Box" to only view keyframes if you select them in the channel box!
• Clicking your Dope Sheet! (Windows ---> Animation Editors ---> Dope Sheet)
• Looking in your timeline!

Lastly, the Lattice Deform Keys tool is useful for editing multiple keyframes in the graphing editor.

Notes on Blend Shapes!

How to make blend shapes:

1.  Make a model. Freeze transformations and delete history.
2. Check your pivot point position (hold D or X.)
3. Duplicate that model (command D) (A duplicated model becomes your TARGET/KEY POSE!)
4. Make changes to the vertices of that model (vertex mode)
5. Highlight the duplicates, then click the original last. 
6. In your Animation MENU:  Anim Deform —> Blend Shape.
1. Blend shape options:
2. Check Inbetweening: sets all of your poses to different transitions on the same animation.
7. To view/edit/animate your transformations:  Windows-Animation Editors —> Blend Shape
8. To view Playback: make use of the dope sheet as well! Shows keying on all objects!

Ways to edit blend shapes:

A. Setup #1: Use wireframe on shaded to help see vertices and edge loops.

•  Common mistake, picking a single point and moving it.
• (WHAT YOU WANT TO DO: Take into account the “skin" of your character! Grab multiple points and move together!
• Make it fold, make it compress! As an easy example, look at the wrinkles and bulges that are folded when you bend your fingers!

B. Setup # 2: A good idea to change mesh with smooth mesh preview off!

*note may want to add extra edge loops at joints for better bends.

D. Setup # 3: In outliner: Want to make a folder just for your blend shapes!  Can make a Blend Shapes Targets Folder!

E. Tools to use:

• Soft Modification Tool
• Hit the B key: can switch from selecting choice points to selecting a general area! (yellow, most pull —> red: medium pull —> black: least pull)
• hold down B key: can increase and decrease falloff radius!

• Mesh —> Sculpt Geometry Tool
• Lets you use a brush to do more organic sculpting.
• NOTE:
• Options:
• A Push
• B Pull
• C Smooth
• D Option 4: Relax Good for relaxing and averaging out verticess.
• E Pinch
• F Erase

Out of class today: here's what to do.

Hi everyone,

Due to unforseen circumstances, I will not hold class today. Despite that, use today to make progress on your projects.

In 2-D animation, continue working on your films! Take 40 minutes today to create a short animation for yourself! In 3-D, refine and correct your animated shorts! On wednesday, I will provide new content for each of you! With 5 weeks left in the semester, great things are coming soon!

Even though I am not in class today, the best use of your time would be to continue making progress in your individual projects. Feel free to email me any questions you have. I will answer them when I have the opportunity to do so.

Good luck everyone!

-Shaw

Notes from Wednesday, March 21st

ANIMATING IN THREE DIMENSIONS!

• components we work with:
• GRAPH EDITOR - Allows us to set keyframes, change easing, and edit specific parts of our object!
• Learning how to read the graph editor is important!
• TIMELINE:
• set start and stop times
• understand the difference between realtime keyframes and playing all keyframes regardless of speed
• To find this: Right Click your Timeline ——> Playback Speed
• setting keyframes
• setting keyframes for specific NODES in your channel box!
• To do it: Right click the node in your channel box and select “KEY SELECTED”
• UNDERSTANDING TANGENTS!
• there are different types of tangents that affect the speed of our animation!
• Every tangent functions as a keyframe!
• Tangents also affect timing!
• Animating from a camera helps us act towards the audience!
• helps us know what we need to show, and what we don’t need to show!
• We will need to use “LOCK SELECTED” to lock parameters from time to time!
• AUTO KEY FRAMING: located in the bottom right corner of your menu!
• When you make a keyframe (clicking key selected), your frame will always changed based on the nodes you select, and ONLY the nodes you select.

ABOUT THE GRAPH EDITOR:

• 2 main categories to read:
• 1) Frame Number
• 2) Node Value
• The name of the node appears as well.

TYPES OF TANGENTS:

• spline and linear
• spline: has gradual acceleration/deceleration
• linear: moves at a constant rate
• Tangents look like the little black squares on the graph editor!

Selecting Keyframes:

• hold shift, click and drag: You can select multiple keyframes.
• double click: select every visible keyframe

HOMEWORK:

Make 2 ball bounces!

• 1) an average ball bounce.
• 2) a ball of greater or less weight! (example: bowling ball, tennis ball, etc.)
• Your ball must bounce at least 4 times!
• Make you ball bounces in the same file. Put them in layers!
• Make a playblast of each ball bounce.
• Keep your animation under 144 frames!

For Wednesday:

Welcome back everyone! Be sure to turn in your playblasts and snapshots on for the next class, Wednesday March21st.

Take some time to practice your rendering techniques: On Wednesday, I will provide notes for our next project: animating a bouncing ball! We will talk about keyframing in animation, the graph editor, and other content! Also,  remember that a 10 second video of your animation is due next wednesday, March 28th!

Homework for March 19th 2018

• 1. Finish modeling the objects of your big environment project!
• 2. Finish texturing the objects of your big environment project!
• 3. Animate a camera in your scene!
• 4. Build a few play-blasts of different camera shots!
• 5. Take 3 snapshots of your environments as they look when they are rendered!