WEEK 12 – Advanced Body Mechanic Spline

Autodesk Maya

On Thursday George started talking about putting our animation in spline. Apparently, it all boils down to communication (or lack thereof) between us and the software (Maya). Splines are great for creating smooth curves, but they rely heavily on the info we give them – those keyframes. If your blocking stage wasn’t detailed enough, the software struggles to capture the subtle nuances and energy you originally had.

Last week George introduced us to the concept of blocking plus. It’s basically taking your blocking stage a step further by adding more in-between poses and breakdowns. in this case, we’re essentially providing more information about the movement, allowing the spline to do its magic without sucking the life out of your animation.

Cleaning the shoot

Going from stepped to spline is like putting window cleaner on your window and the spline is wiping off the dirt. We are essentially cleaning up what’s already there like foot placements/contacts, follow through and overlap in the body as well as another timing/spacing pass if needed. A good method of cleaning up the curves is to start from the root and work your way out, so the cleaning checklist looks something like this

• Root/Cog
• Legs/Knees/feet
• Spine
• Neck/head 
• Shoulders/arms 
• Hands/fingers.