Most people who started with 3D Animation in art school will dread this class but it's actually the most important thing to learn about in if you study animation.
I will admit, I too dreaded this class too but It's actually one of the more important things to study in both 2D and 3D Animation.
It's a term used by animators when they animate characters both realistic and cartoony but they want to maintain all the realism of how our bodies correlate to our environments.
Just like us human beings in real life, we all have weight to deal with. A CG Rig for your software of choice will always have that control called COG.
Not the other cog you might be thinking of...
"Like Bugger I'm not heavy enough! I'm a fecking 3D Polygon character for crying out loud!"
Anyway, the COG, just like our own waists in real life dictates the weight of our body.
Complicated? How's about some metaphors to really give you an idea how weight operates in real life.
Let's use this Garbage Bag as an example of GROUNDED WEIGHT:
Did you notice how close to the bottom of the bag the weight is?
Normally, a bag will just be lightweight but put more stuff in it or just put heavy stuff in a bag and then suddenly, you realize that the bag somewhat looks heavier than originally you thought it be.
And there are some bags that are more fragile to the point that you don't want to put something heavy in it such as a 4L Milk carton full of milk because you might risk tearing a hole in it.
Well that's essentially how the weight of your center of gravity works. The closer to the bottom of said object, the heavy it's going to be.
Why did I use garbage bags as metaphors for weight and Center of Gravity?
Well I transferred jobs from the Giftshop to a Cafe at my Local International Airport. While I normally do things like wash dishes, wipe tables and counters, and go to the downstairs storage, near closing hours(I work the night shift by the way) I had to deal taking out the garbage.
And that's perfect metaphor fodder to describe Grounded Weight.
I deal with things like putting things in the garbage bags,
And tying the bags as close to the bottom as possible
I'd figure that would be a good metaphor to discuss weight but the way the human waist works for weight is very different when compared to garbage bags.
To best describe how weight is dictated on humans and really give you an idea where the center of gravity is without using any MAYA rigs, let's use Isaac Newton's legs here:
While the legs give us mobility, they are held by muscle and bone to the waist or the hips if you were looking at bone structures which you all have seen during Life-Drawing classes.
It also factors with two metaphors:
False Weight Dictation and Supported Weight.
What is False Weight Dictation?
Well, we are led to believe that the closest the object's weight is to the bottom like say the feet, the more the weight will be distributed. But that doesn't work that way.
Let's use PC cases as an example..... er.... not my Fractal Pop Air case but rather something older.
Remember a time when PC Power Supplies were mounted at the top instead of the bottom which is the norm nowadays?
Well according to Jason Langevin, AKA JAYZTWOCENTS on YouTube, the reason modern PC Cases did away with top mounting for PC Power Supplies was due to weight distribution. He explains that because the PSU has the most weight next to a big and bulky Modern Graphics Card, if the heavier weight were distributed at a higher elevation than it needs to, it would dictate the weight that way.
And as a result, it would make the case pretty tippy unless you distribute some counterweights on the bottom of the case like an AIO, multiple Case Fans, or a graphics card.
But back in the late 90s to the mid-2000s, Graphics Cards were just bare PCBs with either just a heatsink or a single fan mounted to said heatsink.
GPUs wouldn't see fan shrouds until after 2006. By that point, PC Case manufacturers switched GPU mounting to the bottom of the case.
Jason Langevin properly demonstrates elevated weight distribution using the FRACTAL TORRENT case from 2021 which is by far one of the only modern cases today to allow a top mounted PSU.
Nowadays, It's a smart move to have the power supply mounted to the bottom because it drops all that weight close to the bottom and therefore will make the case heavy and steady enough to support all that weight.
To put a short sentence to all that, weight is dictated by what's the main source of our weight. Our Hips are the main source while our legs are the support. That's referred to as SUPPORTED WEIGHT.
Of course, sometimes the two won't correlate all that well. And sometimes it's not the hips that's the real heavy objects in real life. It may actually be the upper torso that's the most weighty of all.
Bulma here will demonstrate.
Or maybe even better, GERI THE CLEANER from Toy Story and Geri's Game
As we get older, our bodies start to break down and this even includes our posture.
But if we take good care of our bodies, then our posture will be perfect, even in old age.
Just ask Dr. Livesey as he's doing his CHAD walk.
He may look like he's in his 30s but since he's a medic, he's kept well toned and healthy to the point that even with his heavy upper abdomen, he's able to control all that weight like it's nothing.
But what does this all mean for Body Mechanics?
The point I'm getting at is to take advantage of two weight attributes to the Body:
THE HIP
It's not a matter of only focusing on the COG. It's also taking account what might actually be the dominator of weight.
For example, when lifting a heavy weight, both the upper torso and the hip will work together but outside of the heavy ball, it's the hip that has the most weight on the body while the torso does the heavy lifting.
The same goes for when preparing an antic with a character jumping.
The Hip or rump takes the dominant weight action while the upper torso does all the secondary action before the jump. The hip is also responsible for launching you into the air.
Same thing goes for when you are about to drop kick someone in the face. While the feet does the kicking, it's the Hips that help support the weight while the upper torso provides the secondary actions for said pose.
At times when the upper torso is the dominator, that's dictated by actions that the upper torso can take.
For example, If a character is grabbing on to something like a monkey bar or the ledge of a window frame or even a girder, then it's the upper torso that has all the weight dominance while the lower part of your body such as the legs provide all that secondary action.
The trick is to understand how weight works, which is the dominator of all the weight and which provides all that secondary action, as well as another thing:
Your Graph Editor!!!
This is very important. Looking at reference footage and understanding how weight works is one thing but so is timing. You need to get an idea that things such as weight in real-life doesn't flow evenly. You have to space out or space forward your keyframes in the graph editor and modify the keyframe's tangents to get that seamlessness of your animation.
I don't have any examples of my own work based on Body Mechanics but I have learned in real life how weight can be dominated by where all that weight can originate vs the execution as well as apply all that new knowledge into my existing knowledge.
Next in Maya Tips: I will get into the topic of PANTOMIME.
"This isn't me pantomiming. Mr Razer Keyboard Maverick guy just woke me up from my beauty sleep just because he wants someone to act and pantomime some gestures for his 3D MAYA classes."
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