This 11 week course focused on in-game-cutscenes under the keen eye of Ricky Wood (Principal Animator, People Can Fly). I not only gained more practice and confidence in an impressive feeling animation, but I gained insights into previs techniques and animation workflow.

We spent a decent amount of time in a previs workflow, allowing for story blocking and timing adjustments before poses are keyed in on-rig. This was a relatively new process for me, but it has given me a nice tool to be iterative in a high-fidelity environment.

In addition Ricky Wood emphasized his animation-layer based workflow, which was intriguing to say the least. Utilizing layers allows for quick iteration and focused improvement in discrete sections, helping organize the mental bandwidth of a large scene. It can allow for polish to develop incrementally, ideally without messing up timing in each update. I feel like I worked well in this workflow, and I am trying to see how this type of workflow may be transferred to other animation software, like Blender.

The Lisa rig is from iAnimate.net. The Thor rig is from Agora Community.