Arpit's 3D Computer Animation Blog

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George Term 2 & 3

Term 3 Week 13: Blocking Plus

In Class:

What I Learned About Advanced Blocking

1. Basic Blocking:
This is where the foundation is laid—key poses, timing, and rough spacing that define the action.

2. Blocking Plus (Blocking+):
This goes a step further. You add breakdowns and more detail to the movement, refining the poses and building in anticipation or follow-through. It gives life to the shot even before splining begins.

3. Avoid Hitting Spline Too Early:
One of the key rules is not to rush into spline mode. Jumping into spline without solid blocking can mess up the rhythm and make the animation harder to fix.

4. Moving Holds:
These helps keep the animation from looking too stiff or frozen. A moving hold is when the character pauses but still has small, natural motion—for example, a slight tilt before turning the head in the other direction. These moments add realism.

5. Overshooting:
This is the subtle continuation of movement after an action ends. Say a character quickly turns their head—there’s often a little bit of extra motion that follows. Including this makes the motion feel more organic.

6. Copy-Pairs:
To hold a pose without creating unwanted in-betweens, I learned that copy-pasting the same frame works well. This way, the character stays in that position cleanly for as long as needed.

7. Timing Tweaks:
To adjust the feel of a hold or transition, I can use middle-mouse dragging in the timeline to shift poses around easily without breaking the flow.

Understanding Breakdowns and Arcs

We also explored the importance of breakdown poses, which act as the bridges between keyframes. They help define motion clearly—whether it’s the arc of a waving hand, a bend in the torso, or how a leg moves during a walk.

Speaking of arcs, they’re vital for making everything feel smooth and natural. Even if the animation isn’t perfect, having strong arcs makes it feel much more believable and professional.

My Progress:

This week, I focused on going beyond basic blocking and started applying what I learned about blocking plus. Instead of just setting up key poses, I worked on adding more detail to the movement—like the landing after the jump, the bounce during the jump, and the motion of the sword swing.

I kept everything in stepped mode and didn’t move into spline yet. The idea was to make the movement feel strong and clear even at this early stage, so that once I do go into spline, there’s less guesswork and cleanup needed.

I also applied the feedback I received from George this week. He pointed out that the movement needed to feel more snappy, and he noticed that the character’s standing pose wasn’t balanced properly. So I adjusted the timing of some actions and fixed the standing pose to make the weight distribution feel more natural. I also focused more on the arcs in the motion to make the animation flow better.

Overall, this week was about refining the performance and improving the quality of the blocking using both feedback and the new concepts I learned.

Categories
George Term 2 & 3

Term 3 Week 12: Advance Body Mechanics Blocking

In Class:

Tips to Block Efficiently

  • Work fast and simple—don’t get caught up in minor details. Focus on the main storytelling poses and how they’re spaced over time.
  • Reusing poses with copy-paste is totally fine, especially for repeated movements.
  • Don’t ignore the hands and fingers—it’s not just about arm placement. Proper hand articulation adds realism and intention.
  • While using references is helpful, try not to follow them too literally. The reference should inspire, not dictate, your final performance.
  • Tools like Anamonolok can be useful to break down timing and test how well poses flow from one to another.
  • If you’re using FK or IK, switch between them as needed for better control over different types of motion.
  • Even when blocking in stepped mode, regularly check how things look in spline mode to preview how it will eventually flow—and adjust accordingly.

My Progress:

In Week 2, I started bringing my body mechanics idea into Maya. After planning the action last week, this week I selected a character rig for my scene and referenced it into Maya. I also brought in a sword model, since the animation is based on a sword attack.

To make sure the sword moved properly with the character, I used a locator and parented the sword to the character’s hand. This way, as the hand moves, the sword follows naturally, giving me better control over the animation.

Instead of jumping straight into spline, I began with blocking out the animation. This helped me focus on getting the key poses right—especially the anticipation, the attack, and the follow-through. I kept the timing in stepped mode so I could clearly see the changes between poses and make sure the movement felt strong and clear.

Blocking first really helped me visualize the rhythm of the action and check if the sword swing felt powerful enough.

Categories
George Term 2 & 3

Term 3 Week 11: Body Mechanics

In Class:

Essential Planning Guidelines

Purposeful Shot Design

Every shot should serve a clear narrative purpose. Viewers should immediately understand what’s happening and why.
Example: A character picks up a gift with curiosity, then suddenly shows panic when it starts shaking on its own.

Action & Movement Principles

Actions should move smoothly from start to finish and follow a clear arc. To keep the animation interesting, add an unexpected twist.
Example: A character tries to catch a falling book gracefully, but it bounces off their hands and hits them in the face—adding a touch of surprise and humor.

Reference Gathering Strategy

Don’t just look for accurate body mechanics—pick reference videos that also express personality and emotion.
References that lack emotional weight might help you animate movements but won’t support a believable character performance.

Animation Workflow Overview

1. Planning Phase

  • Think through the full scene concept.
  • Mentally visualize the sequence.
  • Record your own voice acting to help define tone and timing.
  • Import the audio into Maya and start blocking based on this timing.
  • Use tools like Anamotolong to help fine-tune structure and rhythm.
  • Keep a journal of your daily progress to stay consistent and aligned with your original plan.

2. Blocking Stage

  • Start by crafting strong, readable poses.
  • Key all body parts in each pose to stay in control.
  • Choose your method:
    • Use stepped mode for crisp pose-to-pose clarity.
    • Or spline mode with shortcuts (“.” and “,”) to move between keyframes smoothly.

3. Animation Phase

  • Animate in sections—focus on one piece at a time.
  • Set a realistic goal, like 1 second of clean spline animation per day.
  • Prioritize clarity and polish before moving forward.
  • Always check with playblasts—they give better feedback on timing and weight than the Maya viewport.
  • Pay extra attention to expressive areas:
    • Head
    • Hands
    • Waist
  • Legs might not be the focus in some scenes, but they still play a key role in grounding the character.

Character & Storytelling Aspects

Add contrast to a character’s traits to make them feel more complex.
Example: A character who’s always grumpy with others is shown quietly feeding a stray cat.
Use exaggeration to make silent, pantomime actions more clear and appealing.
Note: Blinking will not be animated at this stage.

Technical Considerations

For now, keep the camera locked in place to maintain focus on the animation. You can always revisit and adjust the camera later, depending on what the scene requires.

My Progress:

This week, we started working on a new project focused on body mechanics. Our goal was to plan a short animation that shows strong, clear physical movement. For this task, I wanted to try something dynamic and exciting, so I decided to go with a sword attack animation.

I was inspired by action games and anime fight scenes, where characters use powerful swings and poses to show strength and weight. I thought it would be a great way to explore timing, balance, and follow-through—all important parts of body mechanics.

To plan my animation, I used Photoshop to sketch out key poses. This helped me visualize the movement before jumping into 3D. I focused on a few important poses:

  • The anticipation before the swing (when the character pulls back),
  • The attack pose where the sword is mid-swing,
  • And the follow-through, showing how the body reacts after the motion.

Even though these are just still images for now, drawing them helped me figure out the overall rhythm and energy of the movement. I tried to make sure the action had a clear flow from start to finish and showed weight in the character’s posture.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 10: Submission

IDENTITY

‘Identity’ explores the fragile, often painful tension between who we truly are and who society wants us to be. It reflects how personal identity is shaped, challenged, and sometimes overwritten by external expectations—how idealistic notions of perfection push us to lose the raw, imperfect parts of ourselves in the quest to belong.

Drawing from glitch feminism’s core idea of understanding how systems of power shape our identities and creating space for transformation and liberation by disrupting the system, this work uses the glitch as a metaphor for moments of fracture and rewrite in identity. At its heart, this piece reveals the battle between authenticity and conformity—between embracing our real traits, like sensitivity, stubbornness, and restlessness, and adopting traits society praises, such as obedience, politeness, and ambition.
This pressure slowly chips away at our sense of self, until the line between who we really are and who we pretend to be starts to blur.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 9: Blender & After Effects

Blender

I started by procedurally creating an animated floor texture in Blender for one of the scenes. The animation added dynamic movement to the floor, which looked really cool at first.

However, later on, we decided to switch from the animated floor to a static texture for simplicity and better performance. To do this, I simply modified the texture I originally created in Blender, adjusting it to work as a static surface instead.

This change helped streamline the scene without losing the visual style I was aiming for.

After Effects

For one of the scenes where the character floats, I created a liquid-style background effect using After Effects. The goal was to add a surreal, flowing visual that complements the mood and motion of the floating character.

I designed and animated the liquid effect directly in After Effects, experimenting with different distortion techniques and blending modes to get the look I wanted. Once the effect was complete, I rendered it out as an image sequence to maintain high quality and flexibility in Unreal Engine.

After rendering, I passed the image sequence to Aayushi, who will apply it to a background plane in the scene. This method allows us to keep the stylized motion without relying on real-time VFX inside Unreal, which helps with both performance and consistency.

I worked on creating glitch effects in After Effects to add a digital, distorted aesthetic to part of the project. I experimented with different techniques like displacement maps, RGB split, and time remapping to create a layered, broken-screen feel.

The final result gives a nice chaotic energy that fits well with the visual direction we’re going for. I plan to use these glitch elements either in transitions or as background overlays to enhance the atmosphere of the scene.

I used After Effects to create an infinite tunnel loop for one of the scenes in our project. The idea was to build a sense of depth and motion, almost like the character is moving through a digital or abstract space.

I achieved the loop by layering and animating shapes with scaling and motion effects, then using seamless transitions to make the tunnel appear continuous. The loop gives a hypnotic, immersive feel, which fits perfectly with the tone of the scene.

This tunnel loop will be used as a background or visual overlay, adding a strong stylistic element to that part of the project.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 8: Animation Fix

For this project, I incorporated motion capture animations sourced from Rokoko’s free mocap library. I downloaded several idle animations to use for the side characters to add variety and life to the scene.

To apply the mocap data to my character, I used Maya’s HumanIK (HIK) system for retargeting. The process involved mapping the mocap animation skeleton to my custom rig, which allowed the animation to transfer directly onto my model. After the initial retargeting, the character’s movements worked well—there were no major issues like unnatural joint bending or mesh deformation, which showed that my rig was solid and compatible with mocap data.

Despite this, the mocap animations weren’t perfect out of the box. Some poses and movements looked a bit awkward or didn’t match the style I needed. To address this, I created animation layers in Maya, which allowed me to make non-destructive adjustments. On these layers, I refined the character’s posture and smoothed out problematic movements, ensuring the animation felt more natural and cohesive with the overall scene.

After completing the adjustments, I baked the animation data onto my character’s skeleton to finalize the motion. Then, I exported the animations as Alembic files, which preserve the animation and mesh data efficiently for use in other software or pipelines.

Finally, I sent the Alembic files to Aayushi so she could integrate the animated characters into the environment and continue with scene assembly. This workflow not only helped me gain experience retargeting mocap to a custom rig but also improved my skills in cleaning up mocap animations to suit specific project needs.

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Serra Term 3

Week 7: Rigging and 360 Video in Unreal Engine 5

This week, we explored how to produce 360° videos using Unreal Engine along with the Off World Media Production Toolkit. We began by installing the Off World plugin, which includes Sprout—a tool that connects Unreal Engine to TouchDesigner for real-time interaction, streamlining the creative process.

The workflow involved setting up a specialized 360° camera inside Unreal Engine, configuring the project settings, and using Blueprints and the Sequencer to animate the scene. Once the video was rendered, we finalized it with some light editing in Media Encoder. It was a valuable introduction to a dynamic storytelling technique that gives the audience control over their perspective.

Project Update:

This week, I finished rigging and weight painting my character, which was a big milestone. Now, I’m moving on to animation. For this project, I’m planning to experiment with retargeting motion capture animation onto my character for the first time.

Since I’ve never done mocap retargeting before, this will be a great opportunity to learn. I’ll be using my own custom model and rig to see how well the mocap data transfers. This way, I can also test how effective my rig setup is in handling real animation data.

I know mocap animations often need adjustments because they don’t always match the exact movements or style we want. So part of the process will be cleaning up and tweaking the mocap to fit the character and the scene better. This hands-on experience will be valuable for improving both my rigging and animation skills.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 6: Projection Mapping

This week, we had a chance to experiment with MadMapper, a powerful tool for projection mapping that allows animations to be projected onto real-world surfaces using a projector. I spent time getting familiar with the software and focused on applying glitch effects, testing how these could highlight parts of my work through projection. I tried projection mapping for the first time. It was interesting to see how textures can be projected onto a 3D model to add detail without sculpting everything by hand. I’m excited to explore this technique more and see how it can help speed up my workflow while keeping the quality high.

Project Update:

This week, I finished the UV unwrapping for the low poly version of my model. Getting the UVs laid out cleanly was important to ensure the textures would map properly without stretching or distortion. Once the retopology and UVs were complete, I sent both the low poly model with UVs and the high poly sculpt to Aayushi. She’ll be using these files to bake the textures and normal maps, which will bring the details from the high poly onto the low poly mesh.

While Aayushi is working on the texturing side, I’m shifting my focus to rigging. I’m about to start creating the skeleton and controls for the model, so it can be animated smoothly.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 5: MOCAP and Sculpting Progress

This week, I went to the motion capture lab again and observed a mocap session. The process started with placing markers on the performer’s suit, which are tracked by cameras around the room. Once everything was set up, I watched a live capture where the movement was recorded and applied to a digital rig in real time.

After the capture, the data was cleaned up and prepared for animation. It was a good refresher on the mocap workflow and how it fits into character animation.

Sculpting Progress:

This week, I started sculpting the high poly details of my model. With the base mesh complete, I’ve been focusing on refining the anatomy, sharpening forms, and adding surface details like folds, wrinkles, and texture to bring more depth and realism to the character.

As part of the collaborative project with Aayushi, I also made some changes to the character’s design to better fit the direction we’re going for. These adjustments helped improve the overall look and make the sculpt more aligned with the project’s tone and goals.

The plan is to finish the full high poly sculpt by the end of this week. It’s coming along well, and I’m excited to see the final result take shape.

Categories
Serra Term 3

Week 4: Sculpting, Collaboration, and Next Steps

I had all my references organized in PureRef and a very clear vision for the character, so I began sculpting with a strong focus on staying true to those references to achieve a realistic and high-quality result. Before moving on to rigging or retopology, I wanted to make sure the sculpt was fully refined and polished.

At this point, I hadn’t started rigging or even planning it yet. During week 4, Aayushi approached me with her project idea, which was centered around the concept of identity. She asked if I would collaborate with her since she needed a character model that fit her theme. Since I was already sculpting this character, it made sense to work together.

I also saw this as a good opportunity to try out rigging in the future, once the sculpting was complete. I really liked Aayushi’s concept, so we decided to collaborate. This benefits both of us: I get to test and develop the rig, and she gets a character and rig tailored to her project.

We are now planning the upcoming weeks together to map out the next steps. For this week, my main goal is to finish sculpting the character before moving it into Maya for retopology.