Learn to Animate a Quadruped Run Cycle in Maya

Course details

In this course, we will be animating a quadruped run cycle for a video game from scratch. We will start by setting up the reference plane for the in-game speed, followed by blocking all the main poses with appealing shapes that can be read from any angle of view. From there, we will start to work with the timing to make those poses fit on the correct frames, and progressive. We will then add in-betweens as we continue to adjust the timing. It is going to be a progressive refining process, and we will be moving around a lot between the animation controllers as we refine the motion. We will also work with some variation in speed, dynamic arcs, follow through, and how to correct address the feeling of weight for the character. During this final polish stages, we will begin working on the core of the body, and edit that as we begin to edit and tweak the motion of the secondary elements. To wrap things up, we will be covering a quick trick to make the animation look more organic by using animation layers on certain parts of the character.

(Students - please look under Section 1 / Lecture 1 downloads for the source files associated with the lesson.)

More about the Instructor:

Thiago is a freelance character artist an animator currently located in Paris, France. He graduated from the University of Sao Paulo with a degree in Architect and Urban Planning, and also attended Animation Mentor. He has worked on various projects in recent years including some with Brain Corps Entertainment, Ossian studios, Swordtales, and the Dota2 Workshop.