One helpful animation workflow method that many students don’t learn about until they take more advanced courses in animation is the use of Animation Layers. Animation layers are extremely useful for making non-destructive changes to parts of your shot while maintaining the animation that is working well. Animation layers are used mainly in the spline phase when you’d like to (or are directed to) make adjustments to certain portions of your animation, or you want to try out different poses and motions. They can save you a lot of time and effort when you’re making changes, and help make you a more efficient animator overall. In this clip from a Body Mechanics class, which is our third introductory course in 3D character animation, instructor Tony Mecca does a great job of explaining the fundamentals of how Animation Layers work by relating them to layers in Photoshop, and showing an example in Maya.
The following are covered in this video:
- How animation layers work
- How to set them up
- How to tweak your animation with keys in the animation layer
- How to adjust how much the animation layer affects the base animation
- How to merge the new animation with your base animation
For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com