Weight Animation Tutorial with "Heavy"

We've uploaded a new animation tutorial to our growing Vimeo Tutorial Channel, showing how to animate a character lifting a heavy object.

The purpose of the tutorial is to show students how to create the illusion of weight. With CG animation, we get nothing for free, and it is easy for animation to feel floaty and weightless.

Heavy from Team Fortress

Heavy

The rig we use for the tutorial is the Heavy Rig, based on the Team Fortress character, and free for download at HighEnd3D.com. He is particularly good for learning the early stages of animation - locomotion and mechanics.

Low Poly Game Asset

Heavy is a game asset, and is relatively low poly - and hence will likely give you real-time playback in your viewport. So, no hanging around waiting to Playblast. The controls are simple and easy to use, and all the curves are in logical places. It's also pretty stable and tends not to cause Maya to crash.

All rigs have their quirks and foibles.  So, how can our students get the best out of Heavy?

About Heavy 
Heavy can be downloaded free at HighEnd3D.com

License Type
Heavy is freeware. However, the rights to the original character from Team Fortress are owned by the Valve Corporation, who created the original game, so in practice this rig can only be used for learning animation - not for commercial use. 

Facial Controls
Heavy's facial controls are very limited. Heavy isn't really suitable for close-up acting or performance work, though he will do basic expressions.

Animator's Survival Kit - Weight
There is a good section on animating weight in the Animator's Survival Kit - the one book all animation students should have on their shelf.

Live Action Reference
We also recommend that students act out the action and, best of all, film themselves doing it. Acting something out helps us understand what the main poses are, and these can be imported directly into Maya, or used to create thumbnail sketches.

Weight Tutorial
You can find the weight tutorial at our Vimeo Channel here.

Examples 
Below is some animation of a character lifting a heavy object by Escapee Rich Jeffrey.




The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here.  For the next 12 week animation course, click here.