Animate a Horse Rearing Using Live Action

Horse Rearing Tutorial with Live Action Reference

We've uploaded a new animation tutorial to our expanding Vimeo tutorial channel - how to animate a horse rearing up - using live action reference.

The purpose of the tutorial is to learn how to import live action reference footage into Maya and use it to create believable animal animation.

You can find the tutorial, which is free for all our students, at our Vimeo Channel.

 

Horse Rearing Reference - Stabilised

What you will Learn

• How to Import video into Maya so that it can be used for animation reference 

• How to use the video to create believable animation

• How to improve upon the live action and add a performance

Vimeo Tutorial

To find the video tutorial at Vimeo, follow this link.

Step 1 – find your reference

Begin by finding reference at YouTube or elsewhere of a horse rearing up.  Note that reference filmed on a tripod will be easier to use. If you select reference that has not been stabilised, you may need to stabilise it in After Effects.  Also note that not all live action reference is playing real time; has it been slowed down? If so, you will need to compensate for this. 

Once you have selected your reference footage, import it into Premiere and trim it to the size you need. Export it from Premiere as a .mov 

Step 2 – Import your reference into Maya

Import Image Plane into Maya and connect the images

Now import your reference footage into Maya. There are two ways of doing this: as a video, or as a series of images. See below for both methods.

Work Method A  - Import your video into Maya

1. Open Maya, create a project, name it, and set to it.

2. Find a YouTube video clip you like. Then use www.keepvid.com to download the video. OR film your own reference on your phone, and import the video into your computer.

3. Copy the video into your Movies folder in your Maya project (note that Maya prefers .mov files, but if a .mov does not work you can try .avi or .mp4 formats),

4. In Maya, go to panels/orthographic/front

5. Now go to View/image plane/Import movie

6. The movie file should be directly imported into Maya.

7. It will only be visible in the window in which you imported it.

Work method B – Import an image series into Maya

1. First find a YouTube video clip you like. Then use www.keepvid.com to download the video.

2. Now import the video into AfterEffects, Premiere, or maybe Quick Time Pro, and render out the individual frames as tiffs. Note that Maya will not accept underscores in the tiff file names - you will have to delete these.

3. In Maya, Create an image plane 1080x720

4. In Maya, Create new material/Blinn. In the Attribute Editor take eccentricity way down.

5. Under colour/file/select a tiff/

6. In the Attribute Edior, make sure that use image sequence is turned on, then select the first image in the image sequence. You may need to click on image sequence again.

7. Use frame offset to move animation around (say by advancing it 10 frames or so - or whatever you need).

8. Now you can match the animation frame by frame

Step 3 – Thumbnail the key transitions in the reference

Take an A4 piece of paper and analyse the live action so that you know where the key transitions and extreme positions are. These will become your key poses in Maya. While you thumbnail, make sure to make a note of the timing of the key poses. Plan your shot carefully.

Step 4 – Import the Horse Rig

Free Horse Rig by Mothman TD

You can use any horse rig you like. We recommend: 

• Horse Rig by Mothman TD. You can find the free rig here: http://www.mothman-td.com/portfolio_items/horse_rig/

• Rhett the Clydesdale. Rhett is a good free rig and you can find him at http://stockcg.com/assets/rigging/animals-rigging/rhett_v5/. 

• Joel’s 3D horse. http://www.joel3d.com/downloadsFromJoel3d.html Joel is based on Samson, the horse from Disney’s Cinderella

Step 5 – Using spline curves, block out the key poses in Maya

Joel’s 3D horse

Follow the reference footage, using your thumbnails as a guide to the key positions. Block out the whole shot quickly, roughly one pose every 4 frames or so. Try to do this fast and not get bogged down in details. Leave the tail until the end; concentrate on the body and the legs. 

Step 6 – add detail

Once you have the whole shot blocked out, start to add breakdown positions. This stage is called “blocking plus”

Step 7 - Polish

Once you have all your breakdown positions layered in, it’s time to add refinements and detail. Keep your eye on the reference footage and your thumbnail sketches so you don’t lose contact with the original reference material.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2022, follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.