Short Description - Human and Animal Motion
In this video, we will be taking some of the principles of animation and applying them to biped and quadruped characters in real-world situations. This series will explore the fundamentals of skeletal anatomy and how it relates to the human and animal rigs used in animation using Autodesk Softimage. We will illustrate different types of joints motions on both types of characters. Then, we will move on to some fundamental intermediate exercises, the run cycle. Using two complete rigs, provided with the video, the viewer will be brought through the basics of running with both biped and quadruped forms.
| Date Released | • | 12/14/2011 |
| Duration | • | 03.11.22 |
| Artist | • | Christopher Tedin |
| PM | • | Chris Maynard |
| Producer | • | cmiVFX |
| Chapters | • | 4 |
Chapter Descriptions
Chapter 1 - Biped and quadruped Skeletal Anatomy and Rigs
Before exploring the rigs provided by CMIVFX, made using the Gear rigging system from Jeremie Passerin, the video will explore the structure of the human and animal skeleton, showing how different types of joints are laid out. The viewer will see how they combine the joints' ranges of motion to create an entire vocabulary of poses for both types of characters. There are joints with a single axis of motion, 2 axes and some with 3 axes. These are located in the fingers, wrists, elbows, clavicle, neck and back vertebrae, and throughout the body. The differences between biped and quadruped forms will be explored, as well as some striking similarities.
Chapter 2 - Biped Run Cycle
Perhaps the easiest type of motion, and the first one that a students should explore is the run cycle. In its most abstract form, the run cycle can be visualized as a series of single foot jumps in rapid succession. Even more simple than a walk cycle, it still poses a great challenge to the beginning animator. This chapter will also explore the Animation Editor (also known as the Graph or F-Curve Editor) and the Animation Layers feature in Softimage. As always, these features will be demonstrated in Softimage, but are available in almost every animation program, including Maya and 3DS Max.
Chapter 3 - Quadruped Run Cycle
The quadruped form provides a significant number of challenges to the intermediate animator, and therefore takes some more time to fully explore. We will be going over the run cycle of a lioness through two chapters. We will begin by sketching out a few major keyframes using "Pencil" a free animation drawing software program, then taking those keyframes to a full lioness rig provided for you. The third chapter will spend a significant amount of time talking about the weight transfer and demonstrating some posing options to capture the weight and power of this creature.
Chapter 4 - Quadruped Run Cycle Tweaks
Since quadruped animation takes a significant amount of tweaking and finesse, we will spend more time analyzing each individual part in a "layered" approach, to smooth out the motions using ghosting and several other techniques.
Christopher Tedin
Born in Sitka, Alaska, Chris started his career as a painter and sculptor. He has been working as an illustrator, graphic designer, and most recently as an art director in Chicago, Illinois. He has been teaching game design and animation for over 15 years. His students now work as animators and professional game designers at Blue Sky Studios, Digital Domain, Aardman/Sony, Microsoft, and as freelance independent artists. Many of his students are now college teachers themselves. He started in the early days with Strata StudioPro, then 3ds Max version 1.0, Maya 2.0, Softimage 3.8, Houdini, before finally settling on Softimage XSI, beginning with version 4.0 Foundation. Chris still sculpts and paints and teaches part time at Tribeca/Flashpoint Academy in Chicago.
Project Contents
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