Animation Lectures Preview

In the first lesson we will have a look at some basic tools to start taking the first steps in the world of animation.

In the second part of the lesson we will animate the lamp interacting with the ball and start familiarizing with the Graph Editor.

The Graph Editor is an essential tool every animator should master. In this video we will study its characteristics by creating an animation without using the viewport.

The Bouncing Ball is an animation exercise which every animator should master. Later on, we will understand that everything we animate is somehow related to the simple bouncing ball.

The 12 principles were introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book "The Illusion of Life" a treasure trove for any animator.

Another animation classic. When animating the pendulum we learn to manage all the overlapping movements, from the simplest to most complex.

Playblast is the most used system for exporting animations since it practically does not require rendering times.

We will animate a jumping ball with a tail. In this first part we will manage the movement of the ball only through Anticipation and Squash & Stretch.

We go on with the jump exercise and add the tail movement and overlap by copying, pasting and phase shifting the curve in the Graph Editor.

Maya offers a very useful tool to trace the arcs, which are the pathways followed by moving objects. A visible trace of such pathways allows us to create more fluid animations.

In this lesson we will animate a lamp and make it jump like the famous Pixar lamp does. Here we will focus on Timing and Overlap.

We study a generic walking cycle of a character and start animating it by using the layered method. In this first part we will focus only on the pelvis, the point where the movement begins.

Let’s animate the legs: first studying the main poses and working on one of the two, then copying and pasting the result to the other to complete the animation.

Let’s move back to the generic walking cycle and try the Pose to Pose animation to find the differences with the Layered method. In this first part we will deal with the main poses design.

Let’s move from the Blocking in stepped mode to the Splining phase and complete the walking cycle. We will learn how to manage the curves in the Graph Editor in this crucial transition.

We animate a running in place cycle by using the layered method. We first work on the shot planning and then start animating the pelvis..

We add the movement of legs and feet, then follow our planning to have a clear view of the main poses we want the animation to achieve.

To complete the running cycle we add the arms and hands movement and see how to make them work consistently with the torso and the legs.

We analyse the difference between a system of bones in inverse kinematics (IK) and in forward kinematics (FK) and learn how to choose the most suitable method according to the shot we’re animating.

In Character Animation it’s often necessary to connect some objects to each other so that one follows the movement of the other. Here we see various Constraint techniques that can be used.

In this second lesson about Constraints we will see how to animate an object connected to a hand through Groups and Parent Constraint.

In the last lesson about Constraints we will see how to deal with a character holding an object with 2 hands or with one throwing it from hand to hand.

In this lesson we will create the animation of a video game soldier performing an action. In the first of the 3 videos we will manage the objects setup..

After setting up the necessary objects, we begin animating the video game soldier starting from the lower part of the body.

In this lesson we will animate the upper part of the body and complete the soldier animation.

Michal Makarewicz, Directing Animator at Pixar, shows us the workflow that he uses every day in production. He will do it by animating a character who climbs on a wall.

In this video lecture, we continue to examine how a great professional animator works on a complex phisical shots like this. Let's add new levels of complexity to the animation.

We continue to examine Michal's workflow, adding new layer of complexity to the animation. In this lectures we will add movements the upper body.

Let's add arms and head to our animation. This lecture concludes the Climbing Animation performed by Michal Makarewicz using the Layered Method.

Let's learn how to quickly create photorealistic renders using the powerful rendering engine built into Maya, Arnold.

Let's make the characters talk! We learn how to synchronize the lips with an audio track using the Layered Animation Method.

After creating the major movements of the mouth, we add details to the Lip Sync animation.

We keep working on the Lip Sync, this time looking at the character from different angles, in order to add further layers of complexity to the animation.

The tongue plays an important role in the final outcome of a good lip-sync, since in real life it is an essential instrument to speak properly. Let's finalize the animation.

In this lesson we will study the hands poses to add appeal to our characters and their movements.

Let's start working on an acting shot with the legendary animator Victor Navone. We showing you the whole process starting from the Planning phase.

Facial expressions are key to selling our idea in a shot like this. So Victor starts as soon as he can to blocking the main facial expressions for the whole shot.

Let's work on the walk and main poses of the character trying to keep the various parts of the body connected to each other.

In this phase, we work on the eyes, another key point for the success of the animation. We add eye darts and bring more life to the character.

It's time to let the character talk. Let's see how Victor goes through the lipsync process from start to finish.

We are at the final refining phase of the acting shot. We listen to the valuable advice that Victor has to give us to complete.