Learning Character Animation

Learn all the skills you need to know to bring your first characters to life, including posing to the camera, animating from pose to pose, walking basics, and dialogue.

Introduction

• Welcome
• About the course
• Maya rig overview
• CINEMA 4D rig overview

1. Posing Characters

• Telling stories through posing
• Balance and symmetry in poses
• Creating strong lines of action in poses
• Silhouetting and flow
• Sequencing poses

2. Creating Pose-to-Pose Animation

• Timing the blocking pass
• Shifting weight and arcs
• Adding anticipation and follow-through
• Animating a character from seated to standing: Creating the main poses
• Animating a character from seated to standing: Adding secondary motion

3. Basics of Walks

• Basics of a two-legged walk
• Basic leg placement
• Adding lower body poses
• Adding in upper body motion
• Arms and hands
• Animating the head

4. Facial Animation

• Animating blinks
• Head turns and head motion
• Basics of facial expression
• Animating changes of expression

5. Basics of Dialogue

• Understanding phonemes
• Animating vowel phonemes: A, E, and I
• Animating vowel phonemes: O, U, and Y
• Animating consonant phonemes: B, T, and S
• Animating consonant phonemes: M, F, and L
• Animating dialogue: Lip sync
• Animating dialogue: Body motion

6. Animating a Scene

• Blocking out main poses
• Timing poses and adding holds
• Animating weight and balance
• Adding secondary motion
• Animating dialogue
• Finalizing the scene

Conclusion

• Goodbye