3D Animation

It's all Cyclical

November 4, 2008 November 4, 2008 With a fully rigged model in my arsenal, it’s now time to start some actual animation. This week’s module involves creating three cycles as a kind of foundation for future animation. The only requirement is that one of the cycles be a walk, which every animator should create for their character. Everybody walks, right? A simple GIF that I generated in Autodesk Maya. For the second, I’ve chosen a shooting cycle. This really wouldn’t be a tribute to the Diehard movies if it didn’t involve Bruce Willis firing his pistol. I’m not really sure what to do for the third cycle. Ideally, it should be something that will allow for the starting pose and ending pose to be the same. So, for the shooting cycle, I’ll simply have the model pull the gun out, fire it then return it to the holster. When I think of Diehard and the third cycle, I’m assaulted by images of John McClane jumping, sliding and diving while bullets and explosions go off all around him. Any of those could be a brutal cycle to put this model through. Maybe a good solid run, where he fires off a few shots from a sub-machinegun would work. Photo by Frank Masi, provided by 20th Century Fox for use by The New York Times. I also downloaded a demonstration copy of the new version of Autodesk Mudbox that Peter Eastwood talked about in his blog. I definitely agree that it’s a huge step forward, and I was able to work up some of the details that I know my model has been missing. You know, little things like lips, eyebrows and wrinkles. It’s not much yet, but look at what’s possible now: A screenshot I created using Autodesk Mudbox.