Lipsync + acting shot ¨Come back here¨

This is one of those lovely animations I had to trash and start from scratch again. I tried a thumbnail approach in this one and I had such a hard time I eventually returned to using a video reference. I was also experimenting between having my key poses stepped vs spline, switching between the two modes constantly to better appreciate the timing of the shot. Overall I liked it but I wish I had more time to work on it.
Took me 10 hours 26 mins, only 9,947 hours and 29 mins to go.

Baseball Pitch

We worked for half a semester in this animation. After a while people left it but I kept working on it because I thought it was homework. If anything this exercise taught me the importance of using reference.
Took me 3 hours, only 9,957 hours and 55 mins to go.

Magic Water

This was just too cute not to post xD I also had a lot of fun simulating the water. I want to thank Rhea (who will probably not remember) for giving me the idea of using a magic wand
Took me 4 hours, only 9,960 hours and 55 mins to go.

Walk Cycle Finished

After ignoring this cycle for a few weeks I decided to fix a few things that were bothering me. It looks better now so I'll label it as finished.
Took me 1 hour 58 mins, only 9,964 hours and 55 mins to go.
Total time for this particular animation: 8 hours 40 mins

Simulation of a skirt with nCloth

Here's a first attempt at having a skirt simulated in a walk cycle. It reminds me of the skirts that models wear, very light and dramatic. I tried to make it heavier but I was not as successful as I wanted D:
Took me 1 hour 27 mins, only 9,966 hours and 53 mins to go.

Walk Cycle

And here I go thinking this walk cycle was all done when it actually isn't. I showed it to the professor and he basically told me to start all over again. At least it was good practice :)
Took me 4 hour 4 mins, only 9,968 hours and 22 mins to go.

Dynamics- Footprints

This animation is a little bit different. It's all about the dynamics simulation of footprints in the floor. Probably the hardst thing I've done with Maya only crashing two times. I finally discovered that using a clear floor instead of a modified one would the footprints be clear instead of the particles being moved throughout the floor.
Took me 2 hour 3 mins, only 9,972 hours and 26 mins to go.

Walk cycle now with spine and head

The walk cycle now has a very delicate movement for the spine and the head. I had to restrain myself since I wanted to give this walk all the personality in the world but the assignment is to do a 'vanilla walk' in order to possibly use it as a template for other walks in the future.
Took me 1 hour 26 mins, only 9,974 hours and 29 mins to go.

Walk Cycle only the legs

One again using the complicated and strange curve method I created another walk cycle. I have to admit that at times it makes sense and then something happens and I lose it. The cycle is only focusing on the lower part of the character and once that looks pretty the upper part will be animated.
Took me 1 hour 12 mins, only 9,975 hours and 55 mins to go.

Piece by piece I have finally achieved one FULL day of animating, 24 hours of work!! It only took me three months to do so :0

Small Walk Cycle

This is a small and basic walk cycle. The big difference is that this one is curve based instead of stepped pose based. So instead of posing and doing a breakdown I spent most of my time typing values in the graph editor. I honestly did not like animating like this since it feels more like math than animation but I have to admit that it definitely felt less overwhelming than other times
Took 3 hours 22 mins, only 9,977 hours and 7 mins to go.

Emotion Change

I took some time off after the summer classes to visit my family and relax. Now, once again classes have started and I have a lot of stuff to do so I finally declare this exercise done. I know there are a lot of little tid bits that should be fixed but I believe this problems have to do with my initial posing so fixing them will take me more time than that which I have. I am proud of how it looks and I learned a lot doing this :)
Took 55 mins, only 9,980 hours and 29 mins to go.
Total time for this particular animation: 22 hours 56 mins

Emotion change 6 - more blocking stage

I'm still adding more and more breakdowns to the animation before splining the curves. Because of inaccurate hand placing at the beginning the hands are all jumpy so I'm working on that.
Took 6 hours 2 mins, only 9,981 hours and 24 mins to go.

Emotion Change version 2- blocking stage

 
It was suggested to me that the acting on the first Emotion Change exercise was too fake and weird. So I started from scratch again. The lower part of the body was immensely simplified but the facial expressions are more complex now. Profesor Jeff also showed me a new way to work on my animations so I'll try it and see what happens. First, I have to fix her bad case of beer belly.

Took exactly 5 hours plus the 4 hours 08 mins I invested in the old emotion change before trashing it. Only 9,978 hours and 18 mins left.

Emotion change- blocking

This is the final blocking of the emotion change exercise. The girl goes through the following changes in emotion: from sadness to confusion to surprise to relief. I'm still not very sure about the small steps she takes when trying to maintain her balance...I think they look rather silly.

Took 7 hours 51 mins, only 9,987 hours and 26 mins to go

Live ball v7- now with side jump

This is the 7th version of the live ball exercise. The last jump was changed, now the ball jumps in a diagonal way in order to explore the pendulum movement when it suddenly changes direction. I also learned the valuable lesson that Maya crashes so after losing all my progress I decided to enable AutoSave (took me long enough) and now every time it saves something I panic and I command+s it again.

Took 2 hours 13 mins, only 9,995 hours and 17 mins to go

Total time for this particular animation: 4 hours 43 mins

Live Ball v5

This is the 5th version of the live ball exercise. The point of it was to pay attention both to the jumping ball and to the pendulum like tail. I started using the bhGhost script and I have to say it really helped me out with the tail. Pendulums are not my forte but I'm slowly getting better at them.

Took 2 hours 30 mins, only 9,997 hours and 30 mins to go

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