This week, I continued and completed the polish stage of this three-hit game action animation. Based on the blocking, I further adjusted the timing, spacing, and body weight to make the transitions between the three attacks smoother. I also strengthened the anticipation before each attack, the impact at the contact moment, and the follow through after the movement. Through this polish stage, I feel that the rhythm of the animation became clearer than in the blocking stage, and the movement became closer to the impact and continuity needed for a combo attack in games.
Category: Advanced 3D Animation with Ting
This week, I started working on an action animation that I designed by myself. I wanted to try the feeling of a three-hit combo attack in games, so I first edited some game reference videos to study the rhythm, impact, and transitions between attacks.
In the reference videos, I mainly focused on how the character moves from the first hit to the second and third hit, and how the body weight changes during each attack. Game animation usually needs to be clear and powerful, so the poses need to be strong, and the timing needs contrast. There should be anticipation before the attack, strong impact during the hit, and follow through after the action.
This week, I mainly completed the blocking stage of this animation. I first created the main key poses for the three-hit combo, including the starting pose, anticipation, contact poses for each attack, and the final ending pose. Through blocking, I could check whether the rhythm was clear, whether the body direction worked, and whether the three attacks connected smoothly. Next, I need to continue adjusting the timing, spacing, and body weight to make the animation feel more like a game combat animation.
This week, the class introduced a very useful Maya animation plugin called Animbot. Animbot is a tool that can help animators work more efficiently. It provides many functions related to keyframes, poses, timing, and spacing. Compared with only using the basic Maya tools, Animbot can make animation editing more direct and save more time.
In the class, I learned that Animbot can help us adjust animation timing more easily. For example, during the blocking or polish stage, animators often need to move keyframes, adjust poses, copy poses, or make transitions smoother. Some tools in Animbot can make these steps faster, especially when working on character animation, because it reduces many repetitive actions.
This week’s task was to choose an animal model and create a loop animation. I chose a lion. Since we had already learned about creature study and analysed feline body structure and movement in previous weeks, I wanted to continue practising with a feline animal.
Before making the animation, I looked at reference videos of lions walking. I observed the rhythm of the body, the order of the legs, and the shift of body weight. A lion’s movement has some similarities with a domestic cat, such as a flexible body, subtle spine movement, and coordination between the front and back legs. However, because a lion is much bigger, its movement feels heavier and more powerful.
In this animation practice, I mainly focused on making the loop feel natural and checking whether the contact points of the four legs worked correctly. I needed to keep the character stable in the loop and avoid sudden jumps or broken rhythm. This exercise helped me understand timing, spacing, weight shift, and body mechanics in animal walk cycles more clearly. Through making the lion loop animation, I also realised that creature animation is not only about moving four legs, but about making the whole body work together.
Week 15 mainly focused on polishing my Dialogue Shot. Compared with the earlier blocking stage, this week was no longer only about setting the main actions and key poses. The focus was to refine the character’s performance and make the movement, facial expression, and dialogue rhythm feel more natural.
During the polishing process, I made a notes image for myself to record the problems I needed to fix. For example, the character’s facial direction should stay consistent with the body direction, instead of only moving the face. Blinks should also not be added randomly. They need to match the character’s emotion and the rhythm of the dialogue. Also, the body needs some subtle movement, especially when the character is speaking or changing emotion. The body, head, eyes, and hand actions should work together.
This polish stage made me realise that dialogue animation is more complicated than I expected. It is not only about lip sync, and it is not just making the character speak. It needs many small keyframes to control facial expression, eye direction, hand gestures, and body weight. For example, the eyes and eyebrows usually show the emotion first, and then the nose, mouth, and head follow. Some key poses also need to be more exaggerated, so the audience can read the character’s emotion more clearly.
Through the Week 15 practice, I started to understand the importance of the polish stage more clearly. Blocking helps me build the structure of the movement, but polish makes the character feel more alive. Next, I need to continue adjusting the animation based on these notes, so the performance becomes clearer, more natural, and better connected with the audio rhythm.
Week 14 mainly focused on the presentation and feedback for last week’s Creature Study group PPT. Our group chose to research feline movement. In this group project, I mainly worked on the study of the cat’s body, the analysis of feline jumping and running movements, and part of the slide layout and explanation.
The main focus of this presentation was to understand real animal movement by observing body structure, movement rhythm, and how these can be shown in animation. Feline movements are usually light, flexible, and highly coordinated. When cats walk, run, jump, or turn, the spine, scapula, pelvis, tail, and limbs all work together. Therefore, when analysing feline movement, it is not enough to only observe the legs. It is also important to look at body weight, spine bending, and how the tail helps with balance.
During the preparation of the PPT, I mainly organised the basic movement features and reference materials of feline animals. I found that a cat’s body is very flexible, especially the stretch and compression of the spine during movement. When walking, cats move quietly and steadily. When running or jumping, the body shows stronger stretch and compression. The tail is not just moving by itself. It also helps the body keep balance, which is connected to the overlap and delay principles we learned before.
The presentation feedback also made me realise that creature animation is not only about copying the surface movement of an animal. It is also important to understand the structure and function behind the movement. For example, why cats can land softly, why the body stretches during running, and why the tail changes during turning. These observations can help us create more believable animal movement in animation.
Through Week 14’s learning and presentation, I gained a more systematic understanding of feline movement. Group work also helped me learn how to organise observation materials into a clear presentation. If I continue working on creature animation, I need to analyse reference videos more carefully and break animal movement down into body mechanics, timing, spacing, and overlap. Then I can apply these movement rules to my animation practice.
Week 13 was mainly divided into two parts. The first part continued to discuss Dialogue Shot Blocking Plus, focusing on feedback for the short dialogue animation and li
From this feedback, I found that my dialogue shot blocking still needs more improvement. My blocking is currently missing some keyframes, so the transitions between actions are not complete enough, and some parts of the performance are not clear enough. The tutor mentioned that the character’s facial direction and body direction need to stay consistent. Especially for the exaggerated “V” facial expression, it should not only stay on the face. The body should also support the same direction. In other words, the performance should not only come from the head and facial expression. The body also needs to be involved.
This class also helped me understand the order of facial movement more clearly. Facial expression changes do not usually happen all at once. They can start from the eyes and eyebrows first, and then move to the nose and mouth. This can make the expression feel more natural and layered. The tutor also reminded me that some keyframes could be more exaggerated, so the character’s emotion and performance can be easier for the audience to read.
The second part of the class started to introduce Creature Study. The tutor used the PDF to explain some basic ways of observing animal movement, and also arranged next week’s group animation task. For this task, we need to choose an animal, analyse its movement, create a PPT, and give a presentation. I chose to join the feline animal group. Next, we need to observe and analyse cat movement, such as walking, running, jumping, body weight changes, spine movement, and how the tail works with the body.
Through Week 13, I realised that dialogue animation needs more careful control of keyframes, facial rhythm, and body movement. At the same time, I also started to learn about creature animation. Feline movement is a very interesting direction for me because their actions are light, flexible, and have clear body structure and rhythm. Next week’s group task will help me observe animal movement more systematically and translate these observations into animation analysis.
Week 12 mainly focused on breathing idle animation. Breathing idle animation is a very subtle movement, but it can make a character feel more alive when they are standing still. The character is not completely still. There can be small movements in the chest, shoulders, head, and body weight. When making this type of animation, the movement should not be too exaggerated, otherwise it may look like the character is acting too much. The key is to keep it natural and make the loop smooth.
These references helped me understand that breathing idle is not about adding many movements, but about showing the character’s state through very small changes.
This week, I also worked on Assignment: Dialogue Shot – Blocking. I needed to arrange the character’s pauses according to the key words in the audio. I found that dialogue animation is not as simple as I thought. It also needs many keyframes to control subtle facial expressions.
In Week 11, the class mainly focused on tail animation. The main goal was to understand how to use overlap and delay when animating a tail. The tail does not move at the same time as the body. Instead, its movement is affected by the body and travels gradually from the root to the tip.
During the practice, I learned that the root of the tail usually moves first, while the middle part and the tip follow slightly later. If the whole tail moves at the same time, the animation looks very stiff. By adding small delays between different parts of the tail, the movement can feel more natural, with more weight and flexibility.
This lesson helped me understand the role of overlapping action more clearly. This technique can be used not only for tails, but also for hair, clothes, ears, or other soft parts of a character, making the animation feel more alive.
Week 10 was the final class of the first half of Unit 2. This week, the tutor mainly explained the tasks we needed to complete during the spring break. One important assignment was the Professional Artist Interview. This task required us to interview an artist who is currently working in the industry, so that we could learn about their career experience, daily workflow, industry expectations, and advice for students.
I chose to interview my senior, Harry. He is currently working at Framestore in Montreal, Canada, as a Senior Environment / VFX Artist, and he has more than ten years of experience in the VFX industry. I am very grateful that he agreed to accept my interview and answered my questions carefully. This interview helped me gain a more realistic understanding of the industry.
During the interview, Harry shared his experience of moving from 3D animation into VFX. He mentioned that these two areas use similar software and basic skills, but VFX focuses more on realism and detail. This made me realise that studying 3D animation does not mean my future direction has to be fixed. Different areas are connected in many ways. The key is to find the direction I am truly interested in and continue improving the related skills.
Harry also talked about the difference between university study and industry work. At university, we have more freedom to create our own ideas. However, in a real studio, artists need to work according to the director’s vision, client feedback, and the team pipeline. This made me understand that after entering the industry, technical skills are not the only important thing. Communication, teamwork, and the ability to adapt to feedback are also very important.
The most impressive part of the interview for me was his advice about portfolio. Harry said that students should not put all of their work into their portfolio. Instead, they should prepare more focused work based on the role they want to apply for. This advice was very helpful for me because it made me start thinking about the direction of my future portfolio, rather than only focusing on completing course assignments.
Overall, this was a useful experience. It helped me understand the industry more clearly and made me think about my future direction. I realised that I need to keep improving my basic skills, pay more attention to industry standards, and start planning my portfolio more carefully.