Hello again:)

We have now started with digital acting, and our first assignment is to document the way we animate. So we had to animate a simple rig lifting a heavy object and then document everything from our research to our finished animation.

The first thing I do when I animate is to find some reference videos, usually from youtube. I just watch a bunch of them and try to see how the body works. For this task, Einar (my classmate) reminded me of the book called the animators survival kit, so looked up at page 256 where the main heavy lift is shown in the main poses.  I also tried to lift a heavy object and tried to see how I was doing it.

First video I took a good look at. An old-style drawing animation.
A very funny and good animation. Studied this for a while:)
A real video of some crazy guy doing some stone lifting.
So after some research, I opened 3ds max and started with a biped. Doh! After some small crashes I gave up the biped for this time. I really didn’t want to work my way today. The LowMax rig was the solution. I haven’t used it before, but it was a dream working with, and quite easy to get to work.

I am guy who pretty much starts with the key poses and don’t care how it looks at start of the animation process. It’s the finished result that matters.  After the key poses are finished, I see through the animation and see how the time between each pose is and move some frames around so get the right timing. After that I fix everything between the main poses. Then I often ask people around me how it looks and make some changes from the tips I get. That’s how I do it:)
Here is the 6 key poses I used for this short animation.
Here is the finished animation of a basic lift. *Edit: seems like youtube dont play the whole ting. I have animated that he takes 2 steps back so it seems like the ball has some more weight.



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