'Pixey' character animation breakdown

Here's one of the animation scene from 'Pixey'.

If you played it, the characters looks as if he is doing a robot dance. Actually, the character is in his key poses. No movement at all, just poses. In Maya, you will have to convert the keys to stepped mode to see the robot dance. Go to preferences - animation - default out tangent - stepped. or select all your keyframes, right click - tangent - stepped.

Why in stepped? There are a few reasons. One is to judge the timing/pacing of the animation, the other is work related. When your supervisor/director wants to see your shot, gives him the stepped version and they can judge it. It saves time and unnecessary effort.



The animation for this one is smoothed out. The mode is set to either linear or spline. They work fine.

 The movement is there. There are poses between the key poses that set the motion. These poses between key poses are my primary breakdowns. They are extremely important, they are the ones that show how your character is moving. After that, is secondary breakdowns between the primary breakdowns.

I will playblast my animation and view it multiple times. During this time, i will note down anything that require change. The process will go over and over again.

Note that the process i am describing here is very rough. There are alot more things to take note such as the 9 principles of animations, etc ease in/out, weights, poses, action line, acting.