Lynda - Advanced Mechanics in CG Animation

Mechanics—one of the pillars of animation—combines biology, physics, and art into one fascinating discipline. In this course, instructor David Andrade challenges you to stretch your animation abilities and tackle two very fun—but challenging—scenes: a woman performing parkour to climb a wall, and a fight scene featuring two professional martial artists. David shows how to animate these scenes with a quick, agile superhero character: Hilary. Along with being easy-to-use, Hilary is built for both Maya and Blender, and you can export her as an FBX file just in case you want to take her for a spin in other programs. To help you confidently handle these scenes, David explains how to break down each action into beats and refine each movement.

Topics include:

Defining advanced mechanics in animation
Thinking in terms of form and force
Using pose tools to accelerate work speed
Animating a wall climb in Blender and Maya
Refining movements that lead to stronger character poses
Simplifying advanced mechanics in a workflow
Animating a roundhouse kick
Animating, refining, and polishing a fight scene
Avoiding common issues