I finally got this tutorial worked out. It swelled to about 3 times as big as I expected (which is typical for me) and this is only part 1. Hopefully there's stuff in there for newbies and veterans alike. Comments are welcome if you think something is unclear, or you think I'm full of it.
Enjoy!
Awesome, Thanks.
ReplyDeletethanks a lot, Victor! :)
ReplyDelete-t.
Thanx a lot man. this is the only part i still gets screwed up! nw it's a lot clear to me .. From blocking to first pass always drives me crazy for i really didn't knew what these splines can do .. thanx again :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent tute, Victor. I remember for my first animation in Animation:Master, I was struggling quite a bit in getting decent results, and it was not until I learned to manipulate the splines that things started to come together. This has been a great refresher, I am looking forward to part 2!
ReplyDeleteOne quick question: You mention -
"I could get a similar effect by tilting the tangent handles of key 2 or 3 without changing the value, but this would force the spline beyond the range of its keys, which I try to avoid."
Would you mind explaining why you don't want the spline beyond the range of the key? What is the detrimental effect? My guess is that it is movement you have less control over, but I am not sure.
Thanks for the kind reviews! Pixelmech: I'll be covering that in the Hygiene section of Part 2. Basically I feel that if you have an extreme with no key on it (such us by tilting the tangent so the spline goes beyond the keys) you may lose the extreme later on if you need to retime your animation by moving keys around in time. It also helps with organization to have keys on all your extremes.
ReplyDeleteAhh..makes sense. Thanks! I await section 2 - I can always use some Hygiene! ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing this Victor! Great stuff! :)
ReplyDelete-A
Thank you so much Victor for spend some of your time writing these tutorials and share to us your knowledge.
ReplyDeleteVery appreciated.
Thanks for sharing this Victor! Very helpful indeed. On the projects i'm working on at the moment in my final year of my course, i'm up to my neck in rigging and painting skin weights.
ReplyDeleteBut now animating time is coming back round, and I have some time free for my own animation as well and this tutorial has got me back on track with the ol' graph editor. Look forward to the next part.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat tutorial, thanks a lot!
ReplyDeleteVery nice tut. I don't think you've could have picked a better time to post this. I'm taking two animation classes right now. One where we draw each keyframe and the inbetweens. Learning the fundamentals of animation. And another in 3D in maya, where I use the spline editor. I've been having some issues with it, but I'm getting better. Thanks again for posting it!
ReplyDeleteThis will help a lot, very valuable information. Thanks;)
ReplyDelete-Heather
Thanx machan..its very helpfull
ReplyDeleteVery helpful!
ReplyDeleteTips from a master... thank you master.
ReplyDelete*bows*
Thanks for information, It has helped me tame the spline beast. I'm excited for part 2.
ReplyDeletewow wow wooooowwww...now i got wht moving hold is.....thanx
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Victor! I'm not sure if this will be useful to anyone out there reading this but I like to set hot keys for the tangents in the graph editor. It just quickly allows me to change the type of tangents to flat or spline, free the weights, and break them.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million Victor,
ReplyDeleteThis was my major issue when i was on AM as i am more of an artist, (unfortunatelly now I'm not due to money problems :S),
I will never understand those damn machines ;P
thanks....
adam, that's a good tip. I'm not a pro at Maya, so thanks for the info!
ReplyDeletethis has to be one of the most useful tutorials I've ever seen around.
ReplyDeletethanks a lot, was a saviour just when I needed.