For all my hand-keyed animations, I start with reference footage before diving into a Maya scene. After clipping and retiming the reference, I begin sketching over the footage to apply the ideas I wish to represent in the Blocking phase. Creating a visual blocking of the environment, key poses, placement of cameras, and hitting timing beats while blocking in Stepped tangent mode. After blocking, my first Spline pass focuses on any areas that jitters, over rotates/translates, and feet placement lockdown. With hips and weight transfers, focused between multiple spline passes. Finally, the Polish phase comprises of adding secondary action to character accessories, props, and acting moments. Pushing/exaggerating previous poses and graph editor clean up. After a peer review of the final animation, I move on to camera polish and the final presentation.
