A small trial in Maya

[alt_L]

The video is at here

Feel free to comment

[stantang]

Pretty good, like the pose-to-pose, but I think you can add more stretch-and-squash and exaggerate the follow-through to give the character more weight and juggle feeling. Just my one cent.

[h2o]

你應該參加 MAVS 比賽

http://www.cg-forum.com/main/viewtopic.php?t=8853

[S'tephen]

你應該參加 MAVS 比賽

http://www.cg-forum.com/main/viewtopic.php?t=8853

同意！

[alt_L]

To stantang:

Pretty good, like the pose-to-pose, but I think you can add more stretch-and-squash and exaggerate the follow-through to give the character more weight and juggle feeling. Just my one cent.

Thanks for your comments, stantang.
Looks like my key-framing skills are still usable.
I will take these into accounts when I have times to do a
follow-up animation. The current version is is far from being
completed when comparing with the original animatic.

I was unfamiliar with Maya's animation tools (learnt within a month)
and due to limited time constraints (less than 2 weeks), I had to
keep the rigs simple and only apply soft body skin without
further fine tuning in skin paints. I think I need to adjust the
weight setting before I could introduce more exaggerating actions.

Just wondering: Is there any way to replace a model with a new
one while retaining the animations in the scene?


To h2o & S'tephen:

Thanks for your kind recommendation but I couldn't.
Firstly I am quite busy in these coming two weeks. Secondly,
I lives in NZ, not HK. I couldn't meet the contest requirement:
"只要是在香港居住/工作或上學的Cg-forum.com會員便可參賽 "

Maybe both of you should give a go instead

Lastly, is there any good tutorial(s) on trax editor? Also, in the
actual production, do they use trax editors a lot?

[stantang]

Replacing a model? It depends on how much different between your new model and the already animated model. If it's minor, you can simply use wrap deformer to deform your new model with the old one. Otherwise you can rig the new model with the exact same joint hierarchy as the old one, then transfer the animation over using character cets and animation clip. Of course if you do it this way, you have to re-skin the character. In Maya 2008, there is a new function allow you to easily copy skin weight between models. You could use that as well. Take a look at: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/vi ... eb_Rig.mov

[alt_L]

To stantang:

Thanks for your detailed replies.

Maya 2008's new function looks attractive - too bad I could only
access Maya 8.5.

I don't plan to change the model's geometry - just to adjust
skin weight on the surfaces... this new function from Maya 2008
appears quite desirable.

All right. I should do some further animation testings to check the
limit of the current riggings and skinning before going through
the replacement procedures. Thank you so much.

[stantang]

Hmm... you don't need to replace your model if you just want to adjust the skin weights... You can do that even in older version of Maya.