Pose to Pose Animation

References

• What is pose-to-pose vs straight ahead animating? Also see 3 Ways to Animate E.g. see Basic Walk.

Process

• Camera: Set up your shot camera and lock them down. Turn on Resolution Gate so you know exactly what the camera sees. A suggested layout is two panels side-by-side. The shot camera is in one and the persp is in the other. You move around and set keyframes in the persp camera, keeping an eye on what it looks like in the shot camera.

• Blocking/Storytelling Poses:

  • Sketch out on paper your blocking (story-telling) key poses *before* beginning to animate. Act it out if you aren't sure! Be sure to consider the principles of animation!
  • Creating a Pop-thru: Implement these poses in Maya making sure they look good from the perspective of the shotCam. At each pose, key all controls. You may prefer to set tangents to linear (in) and stepped (out) so you can better see the blocking key poses. If you do this, you will see the character "pop" from one pose to the next.
  • Adjust the high level timing of these poses. There should not be very many so they should be easy to move around. When you move a pose, be careful to select all the keys at the given pose.

• Extremes:

  • Sketch out the extreme poses. Use video references if necessary. Act it out if you aren't sure! Be sure to consider the principles of animation!
  • In Maya, add the extreme poses using your video reference and your sketches as guide. When done, play the animation and correct the timing and movement. Use the graph editor as needed.

• Inbetweening (tweening):

  • Add the in between poses, e.g. for a walk, these might be the passing poses. If you have not done this already, select all keys (in graph editor) and change tangents to Auto.
  • When done, repeatedly play back the animation checking for accurate timing, sliding feet, wobbly movement, etc. Correct these, e.g. using the graph editor.

• Break-down poses:

  • Add additional poses in between the key poses as needed. Play the animation. Make corrections.