Learn advanced animation techniques using AnimBot for character rigging, keyframing, and camera animation.
Easily reset poses, auto-mirror animations, and organize selection sets for efficient character rigging.
Follow along as we animate a dynamic tapping and jumping sequence, adjusting timing and anticipation for added impact.
- Workflow
If you want a better view for the workspace you can use the ZooTools view presets inside the Scene Browser and Import them in the scene.
After doing that, turn on the texture, light, shadow, and ambient occlusion.
Like in the previous tutorial, we’ll be using the Moustache Man for today’s animation and display of the AnimBot plugin for Autodesk Maya.
AnimBot adds a lot of useful tools to make animation in Maya easier and more organized.
One of these tools is the Reset button.
If you make a change in the rig and want it to go back to its first state, select the entire rig and click the button.
There is also a Mirror tool that mirrors the movement of one control onto the opposite one.
Right-click the Mirro icon and tick the Auto Mirro box.
This allows you to move both parts of the model as long as it is fully symmetrical.
The Selection Sets is a tool that makes it easier for you to select parts of the rig faster and keeps themes organized on the side in the workspace.
To add Selection Sets, select either a main control or a hierarchy, then click the Selection Sets button.
Add a name and color for the set and press the tick button.
The set will appear on the workspace and you can move it anywhere you want.
Do this for as many controls as you want to make animating more convenient.
Make the character in a pose where he would start stomping his feet in the first frame.
Before continuing the animation, open the AnimBot Hotkeys to set any hotkeys shortcuts that will make the animation progress faster.
Enabling Set Smart Key All Channels will add keyframes that won’t interfere with the other tangents inside the graph editor, therefore making the workflow smoother.
After setting up the first frame, make a second frame where one of the feet of the character is lifted up, then copy the first frame and paste it after the second one.
This isn’t going to be a loop animation where the character just stomps his feet but also jumps forward.
The animation won’t be loopable.
After the stomp, make the head of the character wiggle side to side to display anger.
Make the character kneel down after the head wiggle, and curl up his mustache before lunging at the camera.
After the character kneels down, make him jump toward the camera in the last frame.
Add some in-betweens in the animation, making the stomp more fluent and bouncy, making other parts of the character move, and so on.
The final step is to animate a camera.
In the ZooTools sub menu, open the Camera Manager window.
Give the new camera a name, resolution, and make sure that both the Match Res/Film Gate and Display Resolution Gate are turned on before clicking Create New.
After the camera has been added, select it from the Outliner and add a keyframe.
Animate the camera going slowly towards the character and following it upward when it jumps.
To make the animation viewable through a video player, open the Render Settings and set the Render Using to Arnold Render.
Right-click on the timeline and next to the Playblast option click the window icon to open the settings.
In the Playblast Options, increase the Quality to 100, the Scale to 1, and choose a Movie File location.
Click Apply then right-click the timeline again and click Playblast.
The animation will be then turned into a video file that can be viewed through any video player.