Computer Animation (L'eggy Walk)

In my Computer Animation class for this month, we have been working on learning the fundamentals of animating a character walk on Maya. Although I'm not aiming to become a full-on animator, I was very excited to learn more about animating in Maya, and any bit of knowledge counts.

The first portion of the class focused on animating humanoid legs during a walk, and understanding the different poses and physics that went into it. The order of poses (in animation) that occur in a walk are as follows:

• Low Pose
• Passing Pose
• High Pose
• Contact Pose

These will repeat in any which direction the character decides to move until they are at rest. After understanding these poses, the next step was understanding how the legs and rest of the body naturally interacted with these poses. For instance, the hip - in this case 'Center Of Gravity' (or COG) follows by rotation in X - the back-most leg. Afterward came mechanical tweaks such as the foot roll, which is making sure at least one foot is flat at all times, and curve progression. Curve progression is the representation of movement in the Graph Editor that dictates the overall flow of assets in the scene. My goal in the first project was to make sure that the COG was progressing in a realistic manner through rotations and translations.

This is good curve progression for the COG during a walk

And with that, my first project of Computer Animation was complete. Here's how my final submission turned out.