The practice -- Tiger Animation

This is my practice's reference. The practise animal is a tiger, which include some basic walking and jumping as well as a roaring. Firstly, I use AE to make some useful references to clips together, which I can convenient see it in the production process.

 

The reference clips

step1.
I choose the model of tiger and test it, and then to make a blocking in MAYA.

The blocking curve

  

 

Step 2.

When the blocking is done, the next step need to add some details make the action getting close a real tiger. For example, add keyframes in the process of movement in the limbs；and then adjust the curve to make the action looks more smooth. On the other hand, also need to adjust the movement of the center of gravity of the tiger's forelimb and hindlimb. When the tiger's forelegs raised, the center of the forelimb would move upward. Similarly, When the tiger's hindlegs raised, the center of the hindlimb would also move upward. But there is one point to note that the velocity of the forelimb and hindlimb was not synchronized. Please refer to picture 1. In addition, do not forget to adjust the focus of the rotation of forelimb and hindlimb. When the Tigers go forward, the chest will produce offset with forepaws movement. The focus of hindlimb movement same as forelimb. Please refer to the picture 2.

Picture 1

 Picture 2

When animals doing some large range of action, such as running, jumping, etc., need to take into account the squeezing and stretching of the body. With reference to figure 3, when the tiger jumping and landing, pose1 and pose4 presented the squeeze state of the body; on the contrary, when the body is moving, the pose3 presented the maximum tensile of the body. In fact, this phenomenon has a lot in our life. When people doing exercise, such as playing basketball, the body will be presented stretching and squeezing state along with movement.

Picture 3
 

After the completion of the main part, but also need to adjust the tiger's head swinging, following the movement of the tail and roaring action. Actually, I want to let the tiger have a big roaring with dignity in the end of movement. Finally, create the camera and adjust the lens position, then render movement and output from maya.