Specialist Animation: Part 1

So we've begun a project called Specialist Animation. The title probably gave that away but there you go. Basically we're working in Maya, to get a handle around it, and the way it works, as we've primarily used 3DS Max in the past. Luckily for me, I used Maya over summer for rigging, so I'm already pretty familiar with the program.

Animation however, I'm pretty far from familiar with at the minute. It's been a while since I animated, seeing as my focus has been on learning rigging recently. Nevertheless, its great fun, even if it is back to basics.

We start with some bouncing balls, which I'm sure everyone's seen before, but the second part of the first week is to put two balls round an obstacle course. I've put a shot of one of them below. It still needs some tweaking but I'm not too far off calling it done now, the final video will be in my reel at the end of this first three weeks of the project.

If it's not immediately obvious, it goes off the thing and down the other thing and then up round the whatsit and through the stuff and then back round and into the thing again. Simple.