..back in the studio..

Getting back onto Maya today after doing the help/learning tutorials I felt I had more of a chance of understanding what everything does. From today I think I learnt more about the concept of movement and using graphs to change speed and way the movement works. When making the first of the bouncing balls I admit to feeling completely confused about what I had done to create it, however after doing the same thing a few times it becomes a lot clearer and the buttons and program seem more natural to use. When being taught how to create something on Maya for the first time it does seem extremely complex, however I've found that the more I do the same thing over again the easier it becomes and I can even start to see what I'm missing when things don't work, and can correct/change simple things to make it work.(Or in some cases just start over again..which often I found to be the more effective way of sorting problems!) I really enjoyed the 2D lesson today..there is so much satisfaction simply from squashing/stretching objects to give them a really cartoon-style movement, yet at the same time bring them to life so much more, adding character to simple objects! I think what I learnt most from todays work was the anticipation you have to put into drawings and animations. I had never really thought about this before, however the difference between animation with and without it is very obvious. It makes characters/moving objects so much more natural and realistic and I can now see why it is key to any animation..