Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Animation, to me, is all
about getting out of the world of reality and
going into the deep, imaginative worlds of our minds. Welcome to the class,
everyone. My name's Op. I'm a senior animator in
the video game industry. And in this class,
we're going to learn about an in game idol. It's going to be
a different pose. We're going to learn
about how to get the poses to the right
place, how to do research, and how to think of the hips as the bouncing ball and to
get that motion going well, get the foundation going well, and then start adding
the breathing and how all the other
body mechanics work in conjunction with the
hips, which is so important. So without further to do,
let's dive into the class, and I'll see you inside.
2. Part 1: Let's start off
with the idle pose. I'm looking for something
like this, right? So I want to start off with the idle because I want the run to be quite similar to
that with the shoulder up. So what we'll do, let's
position this character, so it is facing sideways
like this, right? And also the legs. This leg is forward. Okay. And the weight. Well, really, we'd
have to move the hips. We can just move this leg back. And then just have it
We're slowly going down, so we bring it down a bit. We don't want the
legs locked out. Okay, so you know what? Just for animation sake,
we've got joints. Let's show the joints. All right. Let's just then we can see dusk. All right, got it slightly. Because when we're going
to be doing the idle, we want it to go down and up. We don't want it to lock out. Let's see what we've
got top bits here. We rotated that. It's
genuinely rotated. Back maybe have the
bit forward ready, and it's always good to just
tilt the head a little. I think the shoulders
intersecting there. We won't worry about
that, let it intersect. That's just bad
character design. That's what it is. Is it bad
character design? All right. Maybe maybe we can
have the chest just pointing out a little
more straighter. That Okay. Bring the shoulder
down a little. And slight bend because we don't want that
to lock out. And
3. Part 3: There. And then the forearm
comes up a bit. That's better. That's better. You've got
that space in the middle. You can see it's clear.
Even when I hold it. It's going forward a bit, right? So the arm needs to
be a bit forward. It's a bit back here. So maybe the shoulder,
bring it forward. Yeah, that's a bit
more natural, it. And maybe more like that. That's better. Yeah,
that feels better. That feels better. Oh, there's a bit of a
intersection in the head there. So, what we'll do we'll just we can just get the
upper move it back, move that back slightly. You know, that's no problem. So we'll let it
intersect a little. That's fine. That's
not a problem. But that feels a lot. That feels better. But
Okay. What we'll do? We'll just do a quick excuse me, we'll just do a quick do pose
here with this character. Let's save this Ido animation. There's a quick way of doing
this and what we'll do, we'll get there like we're
saying a lot of times. Let's do 30 friends if we need to extend
it, we can extend it. Let's just key here. Key at 30 and at 15, just bring it down a little bit. Now I can tell straightaway
40 might be better. Okay. Okay. And then what
we'll do? We'll bring it up. Slightly. So what I'm
doing in the graphic, I'm just slightly bringing
up the character. So let's see. Yeah. You know what? This guy, let's make him a
bit slower man is. We go to 60. Let's put this on 30 frames a second as remember games is 30, right? Let's check my
settings out 30, save. Okay. Okay. That's better, 'cause I want him to be like. Yeah, you got to get
into the character. You know what I'm saying?
Okay. And then what we'll do? Normally, I come in here
and I go to animation, save this. Sorry,
can you hear me? Maybe I was a bit far away
from Oh, I need to slip there. Alright. So we know this
is just going up and down.
4. Part 4: Nothing really goes up
and down in your life. So what we do we come to 15, we'll come here and then
what we'll do we'll add so is it coming down? Maybe it comes down
backwards a little bit, and then we come back
to 45 frontward. So we got a bit of a got
a bit of that happening, but if we're okay, cycle this. That's fine. And
you can see here. Normally, I just copy this
value to the top here. You know what? This is gonna be one. Is it one? Oh, one massive. Sorry. Let's go back up here. Copy that and take
the minus off, so it's same. Just cycle. If that doesn't feel good. So if we look now,
how does that feel? You can always scale it. If that doesn't
feel right, you can scale it the other way.
See how that feels. That's not bad,
isn't it forward and then scale it. That's too much. I'm just saying then you can
just bring it down a little. And then maybe bring
these down to zero. You know, if that's too much, you know, that was what here. Going forward, could try
the other way again. Let's see the other way
because the other way seemed. So you don't want
to go backwards. You want to go
forward, huh? And then just grab this value. What is that no 0.8? Minus. So you've got
a bit of a movement, which I still think is a bit
too much of what we'll do. Let's bring it down to no 0.5 and then bring
that down to -0.5. Then we'll just cycle
it. Cycle that. Okay. Yeah, you know, it's still a lot. It's still a lot, isn't it? 0.2 Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's a bit better. And you can also do the Y. So I just put a bit more of the the down should
I say? That's fine.
5. Part 5: I'll do. And now what we'll do. Now you've got the hips working, and you see it's
got that breathing. We're trying to get that
same breathing cycle going. And what I do is what you've
got is the up and down. I would say the up
and down here, right? So if you just copy that, and then select the torso
neck two and the head. Okay? Key. If you check, Zadi Z. Okay. Z. So you go all of
those control selected, and just select the Z because the z is where you
want to rotate in. Okay. And then at zero, paste, and you will see the movement going
backwards, right? Oh, we want to do. We
don't want that. We want. So if we're okay, If we look at the bottom here. We want it. You just
exaggerated it there, but we want it to go this way. Then we'll select the
other one. Same thing. We want it to go this way.
Select the other one. We want that to go the same way. Select and scale scale here. You're pressing the R when
you're scaling there. Same as when you would
scale in the viewpoint. Select all keys, press R, go to the dot here
and just scale it up. Then the next one scale this up. And then you can
see, you see that? You're getting the breathing in the right direction. Yeah? Okay. Now what we'll do? Let's go. Yeah, I just exaggerate it a
little bit more because we need to exaggerate a little bit more. You see that exaggeration? Now what we'll do, I'll
select all of these again and then come here and you can see, now
we're going to do. Is select everything,
move it by one. Then deselect that last one,
move it by another one. And then deselect that,
move it by another one. Deselect that, move
it by another one. As you go up the chain,
you're just delaying it more. If you look now, a bit more of an offset. Now
you might be thinking.
6. Part 6: Maybe I'll get more. You could. So if
you come back here, so if we select these again, just the top four,
we could be like, Alright, let me go another one. Then deselect again,
bottom one, number one. Deselect that, number two, another one, deselect
that, another one now. I'll select everything
and let me just cycle it. Okay, now
let's have a look. See, you got more
of that breathing. That's what we're
looking for. If you want to add a bit more to that, save your work, save your
work. What we'll do here. Normally what I like
to do, I like to get these torsos Actually, we do one at a time,
that one and hoops. What I tend to do is I go
to the middle and I no, that's the hips. We don't
want to do that one. Come here and just
translate it down slightly, even that next one, just
translate it down slightly. And then it's popping. The reason why it's popping is because let's select
that bottom one again. It's popping because when
you go to translate, there's no value
on the other side. If we go to, let's just key. If I come here and just
key. Now what you'll do. This value is zero. Just zero this out.
And that one is zero. Now what you want to do is
just move these by three, one, two, three, because
it's one, two, three, here. You want to offset the back.
Now if we have a look now, This one is the same as well. We come here, we just come
here to translate and key. Sorry, go back here, key here. This is zero this out, and zero this one out. That one's got it too, then select them all and
move it by one, two, three, four,
five, we go one, two, three, 45. It's equal. Now if you look now, you can
see that there's a little. Let's see what that is.
Okay, we need to cycle. So we need to do need
to select all of this. For some reason, it's not
selecting everything, what I'll do might be to do with the joints joints, right? Okay, that's a bit fun. Never mind. Let's select. Let me go to Wilfred.
Ah, that's what.
7. Part 7: Okay. There you go. So
we select everything. What we'll do? Will
cycle cycle cycle, right? No, it shouldn't. Yeah, you see now
it's not happening. So, look, because of
the translations, you're getting and
you know what? If I select these
two, what we'll do? We'll go to the translations, and you could even
offset that by another one, one, two, right? And bring it back one, actually. See? And then you
start to get a bit of that cushioning that's
happening in the chest. That's what you want. Now,
if you look at the chest. Okay, we haven't got
anything else on it. The other thing we can
do, we've done that. So you've got a good decent
breathing happening there, right? The only thing with the arms is there's no globals, right? So I can't the chest, does the chest have
no that one yeah, so it's going to move
with everything else. But what we'll do here, we need to rotate the
shoulder a bit, so it's not intersecting. We got that. Now
what we want to do, in fact, what I'll do,
I'll have it a bit more. Key that, go to 60, key go to 30, and then key it back. But also, we might want
to key it backwards. Forward slightly. Well, actually, you know what? Let's undo that for a minute. We go down. Let's put
the shoulder down a bit. Yeah, that's what we want. Then what we want to
do is with the arm, we just want to key,
we'll go to the forearm. Select all the arm, key
it as it's coming down, we'll key it back slight we just want slight movement
in the arm, right? And then key that at the start? Okay. And then what we want
to do is if we look here, I want to select
cycle everything and just move everything by one, deselect the top,
move that by one, deselect that, and
then move the wrist. If you look at the wrist, we can always play
around with this, bring it down a bit,
bring it down a bit more. You can see us moving more and we can do the same
with the forearm. It's too much there,
bring it down.
8. Part 8: Maybe a little bit,
and then upper body upper one needs it as well. So Okay. That's moving a
bit too much that forearm. Then we move it back. Move that back a bit. And then we might want
to even move that more. And then the shoulder to
shoulder, we could rotate. Actually, let's form here. Let's move it forward
a bit. Let's keep it. See, this is where
we have to do a lot of just back and forth. Then what we can do, we
can just select all of the arm and even move
this all by two. See, we moved everything by two. We could move another one free. Then we could just really reduce the movement even on this there. Then even here, we could
be key, come to 30. Let's just slightly have
a little key there. There's a bit of movement, then we can cycle
that what we can do, we can cycle the hands
and be like, all right. Index is the first
one, then middle. We can offset that by one, two. Index can be by one. So it's a little offset, right? Middle can be a little bit more. So we've got a little bit
of movement there. Okay? All right. And then the arm
on the shoulder, we don't really
need to move that. What we'll do we
create a little. We can have a very
little movement, but if we go here, we could just be there. And then we can cycle that. If we cycle that, then you could maybe offset and but
9. Part 9: The forearm by one, and then the wrist by
one, see if that works. If not, psycho that. That's fine. See? We need that to be solid, though,
you know, we don't. And then even the
head, if you want, you can try and exaggerate it. That's too much. That's better. There. That's cool. Alright, and that's how you get. And the other thing we
need to do, actually, something don't look right here. What we'll do we'll just
move the idle pose back. Back. And then let me
just check the bones. Yeah, it's not locking out. That's right. Okay, so the
bones aren't locking out. Yeah, I just didn't feel it was balanced there, you
know? Do you know the leg? I was like, let me key this. Let me kee the legs.
Ah, Kee the legs there. Yeah, the leg was a
bit out here, yeah. I mean, the leg was like that. That's not balanced. That's
a bit more balanced. Okay, and then you can now
that you've got all that stuff done, you can come in Now that you've got that down,
then you can start come to 30 and just even actually. We can start. Sorting out the
intersections going on as you can see there, so we can come here,
flesh that out a bit. Even here. I just have it
out a bit. There you go. We don't get any
intersections there. How's this looking?
There's a bit of intersection there, right? So how does this work? Is
it going to be inward? It's gonna be out. Okay, so we'll do All right. So what it is, we'll have to probably just accept
you're going to get that. We'll just do it
like that, right? So that's fine. You're
going to get that. Not to worry, uneven here.
10. Part 10: Key this, come to 30, was it? So it's coming out a bit there. It's coming out a bit there. 30. There's nothing we can do about that. We'll
just leave it there there. Maybe here what we can
do is bring it back. Yeah, we'll bring
it back, right? Yeah, we'll do that. Alright. Even here, we can do
that. We'll come here. I guess we can bring
it back like that. Yeah, that's fine. We can do
that and then delete that. Go to 30 and just
keep it like that. Just slightly, isn't it? Yeah, that's fine. And then there's the back, which is key, key. Can we rotate this in? How much that much it? Okay, so let's rotate it in. And then when it comes up, we
can just have a little bit. Okay. And then what
we'll do Excuse me. This it out a little
bit. That's fine. Then we'll just grab these keyframe and
come to the middle. With this fur, we could have
it joint to the back first. Let's key that and as it
comes out, just slightly out. Then what you can do,
you can just cycle that. Once you've cycled it, let me cycle all of this. Cycle and cycle. Okay, now, once you've cycled all of that, you'll see you can come to the first one
and just offset by one. And then there's this one here, offset that by one, two. And then exaggerate, exaggerate. Exaggerate a bit
more if you want. Yeah, just keep you might want to offset
a little bit more. You could offset that one by one and offset that a bit
more as well, the bottom one. And then maybe play with
the play with the movement. That's too much, right? Okay, we could just keep it
subtle for that. Okay. And that's just in
about 40 minutes, you got kind of a
decent idle there, right? I takes a bit of time. All we can do, we can just
key these ple vectors, come in, and just slightly
add some movement coming in. And then you can just
offset one of them. We can just cycle one of them
and offset it to one, two, three, it's not symmetry. There you have it,
you got one idle here. It's the back view. And then from this idol, we'll start using we'll
do a walk and a run. The run will keep on the back here and we're just
running like this. So we'll create that theme. That's why the idol
is so important, you know, because everything
goes from the idol. And when you're doing a run, you have to kind keep it
close to the idol. L we do the run now and I guess if we had the
sword like that, that would still work
because when you stop it blend nicely. So you got to think about
the blends that happened. But we'll keep it
on the back and we'll have running like that because it will just
match the time. Okay. But
11. Conclusion: Well done, everyone, and
you've just finished on how to do an in game
idle fairly quickly, just to get it in and
get a good motion going. Now, you can also
do Idol two, three, which is more personality, depending on your
character you got. But this is basically
just showing how you choose a method on the hip, so it could be a circular
motion or figure A depending or it could be like going circular flat
horizontally or vertically. And you're just trying to
get that good root motion going. So that's the root. And then everything on the top, we'll just follow,
the drag principle. Same with the shoulder,
the root to shoulder. Then you've got the upper
arm and then forearm, yeah, it's all just following. That's the principle
basically you're getting. So shoulder drives everything, and then the arm starts moving. So that's the gist
I would like you to get from this
particular exercise. And just remember the hips
are really important. You know, I know I
stressed this a lot throughout all my classes,
but it really is, you know, can you just imagine
if you didn't have the curves on the
hips going smoothly, if they were
juttering guttering. Everything else on top
gets affected, right? And, you know, if
that foundation isn't proper and you know,
working really well. It affects the whole
body, everything, right? Hence, the bouncing
ball as the hips. Alright, guys, so
take care, go out, get away from the screen, go for a walk, you know,
live life as well. Animation is about
living as well, putting that experience
into our work, and I will see you
in the next class.
12. Maya Animation Mastery: Hi, everyone. Congratulations. This
is just something after the conclusion
that I just wanted to put into all my courses. You know, if you're
really serious about leveling up
your animations, I have a brand new course
that you can enroll in. It's called Maya
Animation Master. And this course,
I've redone it with four K Good Audio came
out in January 2024. And this course is
designed in a way how I would have liked to be taught animation when I started. So it basically gets rid of all the pain pressure points that I had when I
started animation. So I want to get rid of
those frustrations and give you a direct line to what that Aha moment was
for me when my mentor, Steve Gagnon Cady, taught
me about animation. Something just clicked, and
I teach that in the course. So if you're interested
in enrolling, you can go to the About
me page where I'll have a link there called
My Animation Mastery. And you can go
through the webinar. Then the course breakdown.
You can check that out. And then if you decide
you can enroll. If not, that's fine. There's
a private Facebook group. There's a link in there
about me for that as well. You can join that
where we get feedback, and there's a nice
community there. And also, when you
enroll, there's a private Maya Animasr
Maya Animation mastery, inner circle group
where it's just exclusive for students
where we give feedback. So have a look at that webinar and let me know your
thoughts as well. If not, you can join the Facebook group to
the private group. Obviously, the inner
circle group is for people who have enrolled
students who have enrolled, but check it out, and it's just for leveling up. And really, it's got all the theory and practical heavy on the practical
stuff, video game stuff. If you want to
learn about how to get a shot from reference to blocking to splining
to polished, it show real level. It
goes through all of that. And also, I talk a lot about networking and
how to get jobs and contacts that I have within the industry that I can
push your work out there so at least it's in the
right hands and people can see and at least consider
you for applications. Four of my students have already got jobs in the industry
going through the course, so have a look at it and yeah,
let me know your thoughts. So enjoy your animation journey. Stay healthy, and
I'll see you around. I'll be around on the
Internet on YouTube and, yeah, give in tutorials as
usual. I'll see you later.
Opi Chaggar, Senior Animator + YouTuber
