In this CGI Pathway, we learned how to do animation in Autodesk Maya. We started from the very basic, such as getting to know the interface, how to save and create a file, the shortcut keys, etc. In the first week, we were introduced to Bonky ( the pink bouncy character). We learned how to animate the character by making it move, bounce, and react to a T-Rex.
After that exercise with Bonky, we got to know Binky and learn how to make a walk cycle and mood change. Binky was a more complex character to work on than Bonky, but there are also more possibilities in the movement and expression. To be honest, I still find it difficult to make the walk cycle, thus more learning time is needed.
The exercise that I found most enjoyable was when we learn how to lip-sync. It was interesting that we were given the same audio and yet each person creates different movements and narratives. I could say that I am interested in a subtle performance, where sometimes the movement is small, but the teamwork of these small movements of body parts and expressions still well communicates the story and how the character felt. So, I tried not to give the character too big of movements, although creating this subtle performance was quite hard because the character does not have complete expressions as a real human does.
The next exercise was to make one character react to the other character, which then prompted the mood change in their walk. In this exercise, I want to make a giant Bonky, but the scale feature was not enabled, so I shot the scene in forced perspective.
Overall, I enjoyed the class week by week. I would say that probably learning how to animate these Binky and Bonky characters with the rig controller was not as complicated as I thought because they are well made (Thanks Kevin!). So, I am excited for when I get to learn how to do the actual modeling and rigging of my own character.