Character Animation

For my first week of character animation, I was introduced to new tools that will help me animate a character. However, for the first few weeks, I will be creating a bouncing ball with realistic physical properties i.e. squashing and stretching. I also plan to log my attempts of animating within this page, to see if I've improved over time

The Timeline

The window above is Maya itself, it shows the basic tools as needed for 3D modelling. However I will be focusing on the bottom area of the window, and that is the Timeline. This is where the animation happens, placing keyframes, playing and pausing as well as reversing, skipping keyframes and restart the animation from the beginning. Keyframing are an industry standard when it comes to modern animation, whether it is 2D or 3D. When Placed in Maya, time should look like the image below; it is filled with red lines that indicate what animation is playing. With that said, placing keyframes is fairly simple, it simply by hitting the "s" key on the keyboard.

The Channel Box

Another indication that an animation is playing is by looking at the channel box. Notice that the properties of the object are colour coded, pink means that the object is in between keyframes and that there no keyframes placed within the timeline and red means the opposite, the a keyframe is placed within the timeline and is playing it. the pictures are shown below...

Preferences

When animating in Maya, I came upon some problems at first, that is because I did not set the proper preferences to play the animation correctly as it was playing too fast. by going onto windows > settings/preferences > preferences the preference window should open. By scrolling down to Time Slider, I changed the playback speed to 24 fps x 1.

By doing this, the playback speed should now be set the same as the framerate. The default setting was set to "play every frame", this caused some problems with the animation playing on a loop really fast. Setting the speed to 24 fps x 1 allows the animation to play at real time and it is recommended to do so.

The Graph Editor

One of the more useful tools when animating in Maya, the graph editor shows the movement of the animated object within the XYZ point of view, in my case, I was altering the Y axis, essentially the side view.

This may be not be used as much, however it can help me position the object within the animation to smoothen any movements to create more realistic physical properties. I can change the angle and the height of the object whenever it travels and bounces.

Bouncing Ball: Attempt 1

The first attempt of the bouncing ball may not be as refined as I expected it to be; with over time, I plan to do as much polishing as possible to create a more realistic representation. As you can see below, the ball has a "jittery" motion to it especially when it reaches the peak of the bounce, this isn't ideal for a realistic motion. I've also noticed that when the ball is "squashed" it barely hits the platform, also reducing it's realistic value.

Some development needed...

As it was at the in first development stages of the animation, I came upon a minor struggle in getting grasp on framing the ball bouncing every time; this includes the squash and stretch motion. As these two screenshots demonstrate, there is a very noticeable lack of realism for the squash effect, the first platform it hits, the squashed ball's size is small, however when it hit the final platform it increased it size. This was not the effect I was going for at this stage.

Squashed before even hitting the platform...

Another problem with this first attempt was it deforms before it even hits the platform. As you can see here, the screenshot opposite shows that the ball is already flattening mid air before even hitting the ground, it appears at 7 frames. This happened because there were no key frames between 1 and 10 to animate a squash and stretch effect.

I mention previously that the animation is "jittery", This is evident due to 2 reasons, incorrect placing of keyframes as well as lacking more keyframes placed on the timeline for a much smoother animation. The image opposite shows the lack of spacing between the keyframes, to achieve more realism, I had to move the key frames around to specific frames.

Another problem was the lack of more key frames. as mentioned earlier, ball deforms before hitting the platform, this is because there were no keyframes between 1 and 10, if there were more this would achieved a much smoother motion and an overall better result.

I have also taken a screenshot of the motion trail, the first bounce after hitting the first platform was more than evident enough that it lacks any realism. The motion trail shows that the curve isn't very round at all, this can show the "jitter" of each motion. The peak can also be found on the second bounce after the second platform.

The "jittery" motion

Bouncing Ball: Attempt 2

This one is much more refined than the previous attempt, I've also taken the liberty to animate the platform below the ball to follow it's every movement. As you can see, the animation is slightly more realistic, if not more. The ball is hitting the platform rather than floating above it, the movement between bounces is more smoother, this is because I spaced the keyframes close and apart, the closer the keyframes are the faste the animation will be and the opposite when farther apart; when the ball drops the keyframes are closer together, but when it bounces up it's farther apart, therefore it slows down when it reaches the apex of the bounce. I will continue working on this attempt to further polish the animation as well as adding some textures for the finishing touches.

More fine tuning...

Although refined, it was far from a finished product. As demonstrated the "obstacle course" has been altered significantly, it no longer increase the size of the ball squash every time it bounces, however it is still evident that needed some fine tuning. The general idea of this second attempt was once it hit the wall, the ball is squashed. However with the third attempt below, this has since been changed.

Aside from the changes the second bounce after hitting the platform needed some improvement. Once it has reached the peak, it swings to a different position. Although this is an acceptable motion for a quirky, cartoonish movement, the swing was very abrupt; it moved to fast as if it was "flicked". The problem here was the positioning of the ball as well as the key framing. If it had one or more keyframes between the peak of the bounce and the drop as well as positioned slightly higher to create a rounder curve, the ball would've achieved a much smoother "swing" motion.

Lacking keyframes between 17 and 21

Bouncing Ball: Attempt 3 (Final)

The third and final attempt is the conclusion for this task, the bounces are much smoother this time around; realistic but still pertains its "quirky" and "cartoonish" movements. This was the outcome I was hoping for, a refined and more fluid motion. As evident from its appearance, I used the second attempt as the basis of the final outcome; a moving platform and this time it bounces off the wall and back onto the platform. I used everything to my advantage, such as the motion trail to adjust the curvature of the bounces, I've also taken the time to calibrate the size of every squash and stretch of ball so that it gives a sense of consistency.

Finishing touches

I kept the ball size's consistency by scaling the ball to 1.427, this way it will feel much more realistic. As seen from the image opposite, I have also adjusted the peak of the bounce to have a rounder curvature instead of a steeper one. This means that the ball travels more smoother rather than giving a "flicking" or even a "jittery" motion. To adjust this, I simply used the move tool, all other tools like rotate and resize cannot be used.

Giving the ball momentum

I've also added certain physics to the ball bounce, when it reaches the peak of the bounce, the ball slows down mid air, it then retains its shape for a mere second and then stretches back down as drops very quickly. When it hangs mid air, and drops down, it gives out momentum, giving a sense of speed when when the ball is in motion. to give a faster motion, I placed a frame further down where the ball has peaked, this required some tweaking in the process, I had to find the right frame for the ball to reach the ground so it doesn't move too fast or too slow.

The hangs here (19 frames) and then drops down in a fast motion after the next frame (23 frames).

The last few bounces before the ball comes to a halt were one of the more difficult processes of keyframing and positioning of the ball. I had to make certain changes to the motion as well as placement of keyframes within the timeline, I had to move them closer together to make it move slightly faster, the small bounces had to be positioned right, the first few were higher, then the last few bounces were lowered. I couldn't position it in the right area so I had to change the perspective to view the side, this proved to be much easier to edit.

When the ball retains its original shape at the final sequenceof the animation, I tried to give it a sense of "stiffness" or "hardness" or more appropriately, dense. This means the ball no longer feels soft and the ball bounces only lacking in squashing or stretching.

Ball density (Final sequence)

Bouncing Ball Playblast render

This is the final render of my animation, I used playblast to render it. I've also applied some textures and colouring to the assets so it give the animation an interesting and less bland in appearance. I've also added motion blur screen shadow ambient occlusion (SSAO) and multi-sampling anti aliasing (MSAA) to give it a more textured and realistic look. Motion blur is what gives a blurry edge to every motion of the assets, this makes movement and motion more immersive and realistic. SSAO are essentially the shadows, as well applying shadows to corners and edges of the assets and finally MSAA, anti aliasing is very important in animation and games alike, this gives the assets a smoother edges and make it less "jagged" in appearance, I have set the AA to 16.

The Sack Rig

For this task, I have taken the liberty of setting a new project by installing the sack rig found in week 3 for this module. The basic principle for this task to simply demonstrate anthropomorphism i.e. bringing life to inanimate objects like these pictures of Disney characters: Lumiere and Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast (1991) as well as the Magic Carpet from Aladdin (1992). With this rig, I intend to mimic a human action; it will simply do a single jump. However, before I get into the animation, I will be outlining the techniques I used for the Sack rig in creating this one simple animation.

The Controls

Once the project has been set, the sack will simply look like this on the screen, it appears only as a simple sack at first glance, however it isn't the your normal primitive shapes where you can re-size, move and rotate altogether. each part has it's own control null where I was able to make movements for each part of the sack. I was able to squash, stretch as well as move the sack (to move the sack to a different area, I simply selected the bottom circle, with this I was able to make it imitate a jump).

Axis Orientation

Before I do the simple animation, I did some experimentation with the tools available at hand. On the left hand side, I double clicked on of the tools on the toolbox, specifically the rotate tool, I set the axis orientation to "object", I did the same for the move tool. With that done, I am now able to move the top half of the sack, as well as rotate it as seen on the rig here. In addition, the pivot for the rotation is here is located at the middle.

Squash, stretch and simple jumping sack animation

Here is what I did for the simple jump, I applied what I did for the bouncing ball to the sack rig; to give realistic physics. Before the bounce the sack "squats" giving it a squashed appearance and once it jumps, it stretches mid air, once it lands, it "squats" again with a squash and then returns to it's original shape. To give squash and stretch, I simply used the move tool on the top axis of the sack. Below is the video demonstration of a simple jump. Below is the recording of the simple jumping sack as well as screenshots I took of the same sack doing some dynamic poses.

Dynamic poses

The Arm Rig

This was a fairly simple task to do, I simply used the arm rig provided via blackboard to create a simple animation, an arm doing a thumbs up. There are, however, some techniques to use in order for the animation to be fairly simple and straightforward. Again, I have provided some screenshots to demonstrate how I animated the arm as well as a video of the arm doing the thumbs up. Although straightforward, the techniques I've learned will become much more useful in the long run, especially for doing future tasks i.e. posing characters.

Parent + Child linking

Before I start, I downloaded the provided arm rig through blackboard and should show up as the image of the arm above. With this, I am now going to link each poly with each in a specific order. But before doing so I have to freeze the transformation, when linking the polys together and then rotating/moving them around, it will deform, this is due the polys having applied to it. To stop this I simply selected every poly of the arm and the I went to Modify > Freeze transformations, this will prevent any further deformations when animating.

The Hierarchy

The are two ways to view the components of the arm, the simple way is the outliner, simply shift + click the parent poly of the arm and it will expand every other linked component, in this case the parent is the UpperArm. Sometimes the outliner doesn't show up, to display it go to Windows > Outliner. Another way to view the hierarchy is to go to Windows > General editor > Hypergraph hierarchy, I changed the orientation to schematic by going to the Options > Orientation and then selecting Schematic. Not only will this show for the arm rig I used but also for skeleton models that use hierarchy as well. Another method to use is good naming convention, this will be useful for identifying components to animate.

Animating the arm

Before getting to posing the arm, I adjusted the pivot for every component of the arm, to do this I simply pressed "D" on the keyboard and move the pivot to the end of the arm. This is necessary for anything that requires animating limbs i.e. arms and legs. I did this for the upper arm, forearm, the palm of the hand, the fingers and the thumb, all have been adjusted accordingly to where they need to be.

I simply inserted a keyframe on 1 for both upper arm, fingers, and thumb, and inserted another keyframe to end the animation at 25 frames. At the first frame the arm is posed slightly bent, the thumb posed relaxed with a slight bend on the hand, same has been to the fingers.

At 25 frames, I began to pose the fingers, once they have reached the specific frame the fingers will form a fist, to pose them, I simply selected all fingers and rotated them inwards towards the palm of the hand. I also posed the thumb so it stands at the same frame.

Again, at 25 frame, I rotated the forearm towards the upper arm so it gives a sharper angle. Once poses have been made, I pressed "S" on the keyboard to finish the posing. Now all that has been completed, I simply pressed play on the timeline and the arm will pose a thumbs up as seen on the video below.

Inverse Kinematics (IK)

To start off this section, inverse kinematics is simply animating an object, in this case an arm rig provided by placing the the object in certain places, unlike forward kinematics (IK) used for the arm rig previously, IK is much more simpler to use, FK requires rotating parts of the arm one by one which can be a very tedious task to do, with IK, one can simply click and drag the arm in different positions using NURBS controls without having to rotate any part one by one.

What IK does in Maya is that it uses solving on all the rotational positioning. It solves or calculates the movement when using the inverted motion. Not only does it work on moving each joint, you can also rotate it so it looks like its mimicking realistic wrist/arm rotating movements. this is much easier to use, in terms of placement, contact and overall motion.

Making a fist

Although you can rotate some parts of the IK arm rig, some parts cannot, particularly the fingers. the only to give motion to the fingers is to select the NURBS circle on the wrist, and on the channel box, select the fingers, in this case I selected all of them including the thumb, and simply middle click and drag in the viewport. As you can see here on the image opposite, I was able to make a fist with the IK arm rig.

Rigging the legs

For this next part, I will be rigging the legs and hips provided through blackboard. I simply downloaded the rig and it xray has already been applied. However, to do this, go to shader > xray, this will allow me to see through the polys. Next was to apply the joints, I did this by going to the rigging section on the viewport, and selected the joints, this will allow me to place joints on the leg polys. Once finished I duplicated it and placed the same joints on the other side.

In order for the inverted movement to work, it needs to solve or calculate the movement for each joint movement, I added a IK handle for each leg.

The next step is to place a NURBS shape under the foot, and adjusted the pivot on the heel. I repeated the process on the other foot as well. once that is finished I selected the heel and toe effector as well as the NURBS circle in that order and pressed p to parent them.

I now need to parent both legs to the hips. I selected the top of the left leg joint chain and then shift + clicked the hip poly, and then pressed p to parent. I did the same to the right leg joint chain. The end result will look like this, only the joints move not the legs...

The final step, I will be doing geometry linking, the legs will now be able to move with the hips by doing this process. I did this by selecting the polys and their corresponding joint and parenting them by pressing P. I parents each piece and worked my way up to the hip. I repeated the same process on the opposite leg. With the final process finished, I was able to do some dynamic poses. I rendered them using Arnold, the images are shown below...

The Eleven rig: Head turns & Dynamic poses

For this section of this module, we have been introduced to the Eleven Rig, this is the template we are using to animate the head turn, walk cycle, weight mechanics and the jumping. For the first part, I will be discussing the head turn as well as showcasing some dynamic poses I made using the rig. The head turn was very straightforward to do, like the previous tasks, I have provided several screenshots on the positioning of the heads while turning. And of course some of the dynamic poses I did that can be used for animating to a 11 second sound clip (which will done in the future).

For the head turn, I placed only a few keyframes, I placed on the chest, arms, shoulders, both eyes, and of course the head, the initial position of the rig is looking to the right.

For the second pose, I placed a keyframe on 7 frames on the same body parts, and this time, the rig is facing forwards. I would also like to take note that I turned on autokey which is a useful feature when placing the body parts in different positions without having to press "S" every time.

And for the final pose I tried to replicate the same position on 15 frames, but this time the rig is facing to the left. I also copied both 7 frames and 15 frames to both frames 22 and 29 respectively so it returns to the initial position. The rig was fairly hard to use at first but proved to be simple to use as time passed and the more practice I had. Below is the playblast recording of the rig playing the animation, although it could some more refinements, I am happy with the outcome of the head turn.

For final portion of this section is the basic dynamic poses I did for the the rig, the first position I simply raised the rig's fist into the air, the second one, is he has a worried face while posing surprised, and the final pose is the rig, doing a sneaky walk, al this poses may be used for the final assessment for the module. I also rendered these using Arnold for a higher quality representation.

The Eleven rig: Walk Cycle

The walk cycle was obviously much harder to do, with the posing and the framing, it was a hassle to to get it to correctly positioned properly. However, with time and some practice I was able to apply what I've learned and finished a walking animation for the rig. Although, the motion is "stiffer" than a normal/realistic walk, I am happy with it's final outcome.

Richard Williams: Contact Poses

Before committing to the walking animation, I needed to do research on how to do a proper walk cycle. Richard Williams' illustrations proved to be quite useful when it comes to doing CONTACT POSES. these poses serve as the foundation for realistic posing of human movement, when a person moves, the whole body moves and not just the legs, these include the overall torso, the hips, the arms, the head etc. all these were animated when I did the walk cycle.

The first contact pose I placed on the first frame is keyed, I rotated the left hip forward along with the torso and shoulder, left leg extending and the right arm swinging forward and the left arm backward and the feet are also rotated outwards.

This is the next pose is not a contact pose but a passing pose, on 6 frames the hips, torso shoulders are slightly moved forward with the right arm slightly extending forward and the left arm about to extend backwards but positioned in the middle, and as for the legs the right leg is about to extend forward and the heel is raised, as if about to move forward. The head is also turned slightly upwards.

The second contact pose is placed under 12 frames, this time I tried to replicate the first contact pose, but this time it is mirrored instead of the right side, the left side is placed forward. and the legs are also mirrored on the right side. The only difference is the head slightly turned dowards as if the head "bobbed" when stepping.

The second passing pose is placed at 18 frames and is again replicated from the first passing pose, it is mirrored to be placed the opposite direction, however it is not mirrored in the most "perfect" opposite direction.

The final contact pose is placed under 24 frames, of course each pose is placed every 6 frames, and this pose is again is replicated from the first contact pose, however it is much more exaggerated, the chest is more forward rather than relaxed. Again, the head is rotated downwards when stepping down. I happy with the final result of this task, however it could use some improvements such as the feet at every contact pose, the foot stepping forward the toes has to be pointing upwards and the heel making contact and the foot behind should have the heel point upwards and the toes making the contact, the feet mainly stays flat on the ground, giving the impression of "shuffling". And finally the animation overall, is slightly exaggerated and stiff looking. Overall, the animation needs improvement in some areas. Below is the playblast recording of the animation.

The Eleven rig: Weight mechanics

For this part, I did weight mechanics, I animated the Eleven Rig to lift a box, since I have grown accustomed to the controls of the rig, this was fairly easy to do. Animating this required different methods from the previous ones, I used a locator on the box and the rig's hands and linked them together so when positioning the box, the rig's arms will follow. Below is the screenshot as well as reference material and playblast video of the lifting weight animation.

Another Richard Williams reference...

Much like the walk cycle, I used Richard Williams' illustrations of the Animator's Survival Kit. With the lifting, the main area I focused on was the ARCH OF THE BACK as well as the legs, but mainly the back. I noticed how to properly lift a heavy object, one must "squat" down first, as well as with an arched back. Once the object is lifted up the back arches the opposite direction, this again served more than useful when animating the weight mechanics.

First things first, I posed the rig's initial pose, the character is bended down with his back arched inwards as well as knees bending to squat down, I also placed the eyes and head down so he's focused on the box. The hands are also placed and opened a placed onto the side of the box. After positioning the character, I placed three locators onto the box, one in the middle, which serves as the main box locator, and two for the left and right hands respectively, I linked both hands, the three locators and the box altogether, by pressing p on the keyboard. The main locator placed on the middle of the box is the parent in this case.

At this stage, the animation process began, I then positioned the character beginning to stand up and lift the box, I lifted the hips upwards and the back about to slight arched outwards. I keyed this position as 7 frames

As you can see here, the back arching outwards is very much pronounced, the knees less bent and head turning upwards as if to look straight ahead, the weight of the box will take more obvious effect at the next position. This is keyframed at 14 frames.

This is the final position of the animation is at 21 frames, each keyframe is placed every 7 frames. As seen by the image above, the rig is leaning backwards and the arch is also pronounced, this is because the box is influencing the weight being applied to the character's body, this was my first attempt and the image above shows it, the legs are too aligned together and does not give a realistic look. I was not happy with the overall result at first so I did some further improvements that affect the overall animation. Below is the recording of my first attempt of the lifting weight animation....

First Attempt...

Improved animation

The main change I applied to the improvements were the feet moving closer together as well as the overall positioning of the legs I also took the liberty of moving the left foot slightly forward so the body doesn't look too aligned. Also, I rotated the hips according to the leg movements so the overall animation doesn't give a stiff motion and appearance. Another change to take note is that the character is stepping backwards, using what I've learned from the walk cycle, I also applied to the improved animation.

The Eleven rig: Jump

Unlike the rest of the Eleven rig animations, I did not use a reference material to get started on the jump, so I had to create my own animation from scratch. I had some problems with the positioning of the rig, mostly with the hands, as they transitioned to another keyframe, the hand bends or warps to a different position so I had to insert keyframes in between and position the hands to where I want it to be. I also tried to apply the same principle from the ball bounce task to this rig.

The initial pose consist the posing the rig, right leg forward slightly and the left leg move back, the right arm is also forward and the other way around for the left. The general pose is the rig faced forward - the character is preparing to jump in the next keyframe.

The rig is preparing for the jump as if he is gaining momentum. I simply just pushed the hip downwards to make the rig squat and rotated the overall torso inwards, including the hips. This is where the hands where began to start the warping to different positions, so I applied keyframes between 6 and 15 just both hands and placed so the hands don't stray away from their positions.

at 15 frames, I positioned the character reaching up, I positioned the overall torso and the hips the upright postion and rotated the head upwards and bent the knees as well. As soon as the character lands the knees bend will start the bend slightly as if the character is preparing to land smoothly.

At 22 frames, the character lands but the feet are not perfectly planted on the ground, the heels are still up slightly I made the feet touch the ground at 23 frames. I tried to replicate the position when the character was about to jump, but this time the arch on the torso is slightly less exaggerated and he squats less.

The final frame is at 26 frames, and of course it ends with the initial pose used at the beginning. Overall I was happy with the outcome of this animation, it is one of the more refined ones I made, along side with the box lifting, however it could use some improvements such as the torso bending when the arm reaches up or the head turning tilting as well, all in all, I am content with the final result. Below is the playblast recording of the rig.

Animating to a 11 second sound clip feat. The Eleven Rig

For this final part of the module, I will be using a 12 second video capture and converting it into a sound file (.wav) and implementing it into an animation of two Eleven Rig characters firing a semi auto rifle and a fully automatic one. Both rigs have different stances and aiming positions, the first rig aims the rifle precisely, looking down the sights and firing away, and the second rig has a "reckless" type of position when holding the rifle, as he is firing from the hip. As described here, each rig is positioned and animated in their own unique way, both are also have facial expressions deemed appropriate for each situation.

Before I begin demonstrating the final outcome of the animation, I will be describing the methods used, steps taken as well as the assets and referencing used to create and bring life to the animation. Firstly, the sound clip...

Far Cry 5 Weaponry...

I initially planned out what type of sound needed for the sound clip and immediately thought that it would be appropriate using a first person shooter as a sound source, specifically Far Cry 5. Taking Advantage of the Xbox One's capture/recording option, I was able to take this clip from the console itself and transferring it into my PC. This game has an arsenal of weaponry that can be used, from submachine guns to rocket launchers, in this case I used two types of rifles: a semi automatic one, and a fully automatic one. I then converted the this video file (which is a MP4) to a .wav file. This .wav file will then be imported into Maya to finally use for my animation.

The Eleven Rigs used

The first rig was positioned in more tradition stance when holding a rifle and not aiming it, this rig face is less expressive than that of the second rig, this is because I thought it would be appropriate for this character to "concentrate" when firing the rifle, the second rig however, is that of a reckless motion, he isn't exactly aiming when he's firing it, but instead he's "firing from the hip", which is the term for it. This one's face is more expressive and as he's firing the weapon, he pulls an angry face, or more appropriately a "war face!"... Below are the reference images used to position both rigs.

According to the reference images here, some illustrations have handguns and some are kneeling/crouching, I was originally going to do handgun and the rig crouching while firing a gun but through some developmental changes, I changed the rig's final position.

Facial Expressions

First Rig: Initial Expression

Second Rig: Initial Expression

First Rig: When Aiming

Second Rig: When Aiming

Both rigs have their own facial expressions that would fit their animated properties. The first rig has a more calm and less "crazy" appearance when aiming and not aiming the rifle, and when he aims, his left eye is squinting to aim the rifle with precision. As for the second rig, he is giving the appearance of a "mad man" when shooting the rifle, his initial expression gives an "angry" look and when he is firing the rifle he is giving his "war face". These expressions represent what kind of character each rig is giving, the first one gives the impression that he is patient, whilst the other gives out the opposite: impatient as well as crazy. I feel like I have achieved the appropriate facial expression for each rig. For these facial expressions, I simply used the FACS system by Dr. Paul Ekman...

Action Units (AU)

Dr. Paul Ekman believed that each facial expression is made out of different Action Units (AU). When combined together, they form an expression. Although for this project, I did not use Action Units, I used Dr. Paul Ekman as a reference when giving the rigs some expressions. For more details on Action Units, see DIGITAL SCULPTURE.

Positioning and Parent/Child relationship

Before implementing some motion to both characters, I imported two rifles I found on the internet, an M1 Carbine and a M16. Both were OBJ and FBX respectively. I removed all textures for both weapons as it causes some stability problems for Maya i.e. crashes, stutters and lags. I have also provided links of where I downloaded these assets.

M1 carbine Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/m1-carbine-3d-model-1650978

M16 Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-m16-rifle-games-1146673

Parenting the Rifles..

Now that I've imported both files into Maya, I can now begin to position the rigs. But before I do some positioning, I linked both both weapons to both respective rigs' wrists, this way that rifle will be attached to the rig's arms without moving out of place. This makes it so giving the rig some motion will be much simpler than individually animating the rifles and the body parts.

Positioning the rigs: holding the rifles

First Rig: Left hand

Second Rig: Left hand

First Rig: Right Hand

Second Rig: Right hand

Using the the reference images from before, I was able to grasp the general idea of what a person looks like when holding a rifle both aiming and firing from the hip, as you can see from the asset images above both M1 Carbine and M16 are both different, specifically when looking at the grip; the M16 has pistol-styled grip while the M1 Carbine does not. For the first rig, the character's hands are placed in a certain way, thumb wrapped around the rear of the rifle and index finger on the trigger. The second rig has his hand gripping the rifle's pistol grip and the index finger on the trigger. as for the other hand both are placed in a similar fashion.

Positioning the rigs: Stance

First Rig: Initial Stance (Frame 0)

Second Rig: Initial Stance (Frame 0)

First Rig: Aiming (Frame 14)

Second Rig: Aiming (Frame 126)

First Rig: Firing (Frame 26)

Second Rig: Firing (Frame 174)

For the second and final part of the rig positioning I simply just followed the reference drawings I found on the internet. The first as you can see, the initial stance has his legs apart and hip turned clockwise. When he is aiming I tilted his head to the side as if to look through the rifle's sights and his shoulder bend inwards. And finally firing the weapon, it has to recoil his lower back is arched and head tilted backwards. The second rig is a completely different story, his body facing forward, legs far apart, knees, back and shoulders are bent, the initial pose he has the rifle pointing downwards, the second position when aiming he lifts the gun up to his hip, and the final firing pose his head is tilted backwards much more than the first rig, his back bent much more, and his legs lowering as if to plant his feet much more onto the ground. Each of these positions are synced into to firing sound imported into Maya; each audio spike on the timeline has been keyframed with these actions in place, below is a screen capture of the timeline.

Cameras and Sequencing

Coming to a conclusion, the final part of the animation are the cameras and camera sequence that is needed for a more dramatic effect. This is important for any animation to come to life, different camera angles in a single clip can even show how dramatic the animation will be, below are the 5 different camera positions, including the Ubercam, that I've placed within the viewport. The first camera is simply just panning over the first character, the second camera angle is the traditional over the shoulder, the third being a hip level, and fourth and final camera is a simple low angle shot.

First Cam: Panning

Third Cam: Hip Level

Second Cam: Over the Shoulder

Fourth Cam: Low Angle

Applying the first camera...

Now that I've applied all the appropriate camera angles, it is finally time to bake all the cameras in to one sequence. By doing this I simply opened the Camera Sequencer via Windows > Animation Editors and Camera Sequencer. This tool will provide all the needs to combine all four camera shots into one single camera called the UBERCAM. Before doing baking the shots together, on the sequencer, I created and framed a new shot by pressing the orange bar and the orange square respectively on the top left corner. This will allow me to apply the first camera into the sequencer. To apply a new camera into the newly added sequence I simply right clicked on it and clicked on Gun_Cam_1.

Splitting the Shot...

To add the other cameras, I need to split the shot at the exact time I want, in this case I want to change the camera angle just as soon as the character fires a shot. So I dragged the slider to the exact time on the sound clip/soundtrack below, the sound spikes up and indicates that the fires are being shot, I right-clicked on the sequence on the right side of the slider and clicked split shot, and simply apply the second camera, in this case, Gun_Cam_2. The same method applies to all cameras.

The "Ubercam"

Finally, the ubercam, this simply bakes/combines all created sequences of cameras together into one single "ubercam", this way, I can just go look through the ubercam perspective and see all the camera's playing altogether as one sequence, this way won't have to view it through the sequencer and in addition be able to render and record the animation using all combined cameras. To create the ubercam I simply clicked Create > Ubercam. And going back into the viewport, the outliner will now show the ubercam, which I renamed Baked_Uber_Cam_1.

Final Result

I couldn't have been more satisfied with the final result of my animation, although I think it was a satisfactorily animated outcome, it was average at best, therefore a lot of improvement needs to be implemented. For example when the first rig fires shots, his legs are stiff in appearance, I did however try to avoid that on the second rig. Another improvement is the overall appearance of the rigs, they should have different appearances and not the same cloned/imported rig.