This week, I used the HumanIK tool to put a control rig on my character. After inserting the control rig, I animated a run cycle in Maya by setting animation key frames. After the key frames were set, the graph editor for animations was used to smooth out the movements of each joint in the animation. After the movements looked clean and the animation looked smooth and realistic, the animation was baked out and saved as an FBX and then sent to the programmers to import into Unity for gameplay testing. For the next progress summary, I intend to put the mesh in Mudbox to clean it up a bit and then detail the character into a proper human form. Below is my progress in the stage completion list and some screenshots of the work I did in Maya this past week for animating the character.
Stage 1 - complete modeled basic mesh ----> (COMPLETE)
Stage 2 - Insert a skeleton into the mesh ----> (COMPLETE)
Stage 3 - Skin and rig the mesh ----> (COMPLETE)
Stage 4 - Animate a basic run cycle for the mesh for game testing ----> (COMPLETE)
Stage 5 - Mudbox the mesh to clean it up
Stage 6 - Detail the character with exact human form
Stage 7 - Texture the character
Stage 8 - Light and render character in Maya
Stage 9 - Insert fully detailed and animated character into the final game product
Screenshots of Progress:
