My Full Workflow for Animating Character Props + Constraints

There's many ways to deal with constraints to animate weapons and props with your characters, let me show you how I do it to avoid all the technical headaches :)
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[@SirWade]

Did you like this "how I think while animating" workflow demo? Should we do more? If we did, what would you want to see me animate and break down? :)

[@sk.mahdeemahbubsamy2857]

Animate MASTER CHIEF ground pound........or Chief reloading a weapon

[@KINGDOMANIMATION4D]

I like hearing the other options you could use in a workflow, so I appreciate that. I would like to see you animate and break down facial experessions while talking/singing. TY!

[@KTSamurai1]

would prefer a more structured video where you aren't playing it by ear, though recordings from stream are always welcome in addition to that

[@berrysweetkins6434]

@@KINGDOMANIMATION4D I see he has a "Lip Sync" video from about 6 months ago that might help!

[@ordinaryboka3948]

@@berrysweetkins6434 thankyou for leading me to another very helpful video

[@SeraYagami]

To see an expert like you ponder over the same things that I do, really gives me hope as a beginner. I guess confusions are confusions and we never really get over them, sometimes even with experience. I really like your spirit of just moving forward and seeing the consequences unlike me who stops on her tracks just because I felt unsure and then wasting time procrastinating because that particular confusion is making me afraid of attempting the animation. I really want to get over my low confidence or whatever it's called and become an animator who charges forward always, just like you do. Thank you so much for making this video. It helps... Really. More than you think it does.❤️

[@thirdeyenz]

I've been animating for games and TV for about 16-17 years and I still hit walls where I'm confused by something and get hung up on it. People forget things, especially when you're using multiple pieces of similar software. Best to walk away and do something else for 10-20 minutes and clear your head, then when you come back to it you'll be a bit more relaxed and ready to tackle the task. And never be afraid to just try something crazy and overblown. Just save your work, whack in some crazy poses and see how it works. You can always go back to your save or tone the poses down. And practice practice practice. Good luck out there!

[@SeraYagami]

@@thirdeyenz Thank you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts! It helps beginners like me a lot!! T_T

[@ilusions4]

best explanation of the euler filter I've ever heard. Thank you

[@paulburns9854]

Thank you so much for going over this on stream for me!

[@peteyb5150]

Oooh! 8:05 Great description. "Off an octave" This has haunted me many times! Glad to finally hear what is causing it!

[@GreenFogg]

I didnt even know euler was a thing! Finaly i can stop spending all my time counter animating the rigs desire for a rave

[@paolaabril9250]

This is so well explained, i was jut looking for the rig, but got caught into it, so good! make me wanna get a review, but first think about an animation, you're the best animation youtuber ever! really admire your work, and the way you explain is so good and clear!

[@masterninjason157]

I actually really like the slight roughness if this video from being edited from a stream, I think it really turned out well, and even some of the tiny side tangents work well, good video (also good video in the first place, something that's useful to know, and well taught, good job)

[@emmey8865]

You can do the same animbot constraint trick with just base maya by using the match transform option. Obviously that only works for the single frame in question but it's one workaround that's quite nice. No need for having multiple constraints or locators stacking on top of eachother.

[@TechnicFlow]

1:10 Making sound effects is key to good animation.

[@mortenbartholdy464]

Thank you so much for going through this topic so meticulously. The constraint/animation blending workflow in Maya, especially with multiple constraints, has me totally baffled. It is incredible how unintuitive the Maya devs made this functionality, as with so many Maya tools. Your tutorial at least made it workable, as opposed to the AD documentation.

[@ordinaryboka3948]

havent thought of blend parent could be used this way , learnt alot thankyou so much for the sharing

[@KwasiMedia]

The fingers spinning have made my day...🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@RJmunday]

I am all about butt load of locators to control various rotations and positions within the hand or outside of the hand. Generally a simple solution is a locator. Pop it into a group. Attach the ground to the hand or vice versa depending on needs. Then parent the prop to the locator. That way the prop will move along with the hand thanks to the parent constraint to the parent group but then the locator can then control the prop within the hand. Perfect for flurries with staffs, daggers, swords or pistols if you want to do fancy spins.

[@morbid1.]

I always take snap constrain or very very small like 2-3 frame blend because it's important to have full control over what is happening... ofc you can use blend, add new helper, bake animation to that helper, turn off constrain, and use helper as start end points with layers to add flavour... There are methods

[@sehece3557]

Hey I just noticed you're at 130k subscribers ! Whoah !! Congrats Sir !! Well deserved ! Keep on going 👊😊

[@brendaximenaroldanromero525]

such perfect timing for this video! i watched the other constrain videos as well and they have been so useful :D maybe a video on how to keep your axis orientations clean? that would be perfect :D

[@kamranbashir8610]

I needed this video soooooo frikkin much. Thanks Sir

[@CreativeSteve69]

did i just watch a whole half a hour video from tuesdays livestream. yes I did. I actually enjoy this new method of making videos experiment. I would love to see more like this in case i miss stream. not sure how well you are in enviorment work. on creating a grassfield growing next please. :)

[@forzamaya4087]

This is great!

[@Epona1357]

Thanks so much for this tutorial! It was exactly what I was needing for my class. Can you sometime go over how you changed your graph editor to have different colors for each axis? I would love to have more visual diversity between translate, rotate, and scale. Thanks for your time and effort in these tutorials. It does help us out alot and I can't thank you enough.

[@Zanfinazzi]

Loved the OMG moments at the ending 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@prishashah5658]

Thank you for this video literally last night I was struggling to do this exact this with the Thor rig

[@fps_illusionist]

Did you complete animating something with thor rig? Can i see?

[@HalValla01]

Euler filter - converts a 24 hour clock to a 12 hour clock

[@doppalapudisiddivinayak2454]

Love from India🇮🇳 😘

[@At_Amsterdam]

Thank you!!

[@itzsamh]

This vid was amazing, genuinely really helpful, thank you! However I do have one question; do we need animbot in order to snap the Hammer to the Thor Rig's hand or is there a way to do that within default Maya?

[@aviktapadar2252]

Can we use the character in blender??

[@jacquelinewilliams747]

VERY new to Character Animator and self teaching... How does one go about acquiring props? for a faster workflow I wanted to see if there are any out there I can just drop in for my puppet. -- deeper explanation: I need a Bible prop. if I have to create one, how should I do that? which program would be best for it? Thanks in advance

[@mAcroFaze]

Awesome video! :D I was wondering if there's a way to highlight or select whatever an object is constrained to..! Let's say the hammer's constrained to a locator which, for whatever reason isn't in the same place as the hammer and we can't instantly find it, is there a way to select the hammer and through its channels or anything, find/select what it's currently constrained to at all? I remember with Softimage (back in the day) you could select an object and there'd be a button to 'select constraining objects' which would then highlight said objects in the outliner..! Maybe it's really simple and I've just never properly found out, but it'd be extremely helpful :D

[@amirreza100]

hey Sir Wade I want to create a dunk animation but I don't know how to fit the ball on the hand of my character to be more realistic

[@ritogoron3512]

Can you talk abiut the m1 and how it is for 3d animation

[@harrypotter-cb7zm]

you can upload a video of how to make this character work please as well as you did with the one from the spiderverse please

[@3dcadclub981]

Cool i like animation too

[@Annatar0]

When you have a character with armor for example as an accessory, do you treat it as one mesh or each mesh (character + armor) as seperate?

[@HalValla01]

Why do you have 2 versions of blender on your taskbar?

[@SirWade]

One is the unstable alpha version I’m testing

[@davidtikwa423]

I'm new to Maya animating is there any tutorial i could follow of yours that goes through the paces of adding a rig to a character and animating it ?

[@DavidEstebanFlores]

youuu have nooo powerrr heeeaaaaaaa GANDALF THE GREY!!

[@PulockMaheen15]

Great video as usual! May I know what plugin are you using for the pencil tool? Sorry, It's Epic Pen. I should've watched the video first!

[@fellipeoliveira3391]

Hello Wade, what is the best video player you recommend for animation? The players I know do not play frame by frame.

[@siIverijus]

Please add in the name or atleast in the description if you are working with maya or with blender as a main modeling tool for the video. since you started doing blender stuff which is fine I first have to scroll through whole video multiple times to see if there won't be unnecessary soft changes and if it will be useful. No hate, much love.

[@Ruan3D]

Are you planning to do a Blender tutorial for this? :) :)

[@gokulchandran8353]

In this rig whenever i select whole controllers and hit set key maya gets freeze but here it is working fine..

[@oke_wait]

anybody know a way to do this but with iron man's repulsor's glove? like fingers moving with the gloves

[@etienneguyard2302]

Love your videos! keep going ! just simple question: what is the name of the script which allows you to draw on your maya's screen ? this can help me a lot :)

[@rambabuchennu1301]

Love you from india 💗💗

[@manum.r2491]

I don't have MAYA.But still i love this video

[@AleXanDraPR369]

Do you like working with scripts? Have you heard of Zv Parent Master? I feel like I don't have to think like a rigger or anything other than an animator with this script when dealing with constraints

[@fellipeoliveira3391]

How to animate quadrupeds? I find it so complex and scary. Is there any technique for this?

[@user-up9mh7qk1h]

I was very happy with your video! I have a question. The Thor / Mjolnir rig I animated Is it okay to upload it to a KZbin video and use it on a demo reel? I'm sorry for the poor English.

[@SirWade]

Yes! You can use it for your learning and demo reel and share it! :)

[@user-up9mh7qk1h]

@@SirWade Thank you!!🌝

[@LaziToonz]

hey, how can I make my character walk along a path or curve?

[@shivaansathabridge7860]

can you use Houdini?

[@kendarr]

Why would one use a locator instead of just turning the constrain off and then animate the object it self?

[@SirWade]

If you need the hammer to lock onto another object - then you have to transfer ownership. Maybe he puts the hammer on a table, maybe a magnet is involved, etc. otherwise yeah just the hammer won’t need that workflow

[@kendarr]

@@SirWade Oh cool, i could use it as an anchor point, in literal way, thanks!. Thanks for all the info you put in your videos too, love then.

[@NazimZaki]

may i know what software/apps did you use to draw on screen there? 15:52

[@NazimZaki]

oh nvm its in the video already :D thank you

[@a.p.2018]

So you're trying to get the hammer in Thor's grasp. Why don't you try just getting two different hammers, 1 for flying around, set keying that one with the controls to disappear and one hammer thats invisibly constraint to Thor's hand to appear in that slight second They meet up. Boom no one would know the wiser. this video could of been turn to a 5 minute video. Maybe even 3 minutes

[@SirWade]

I discuss why this isn't a good solution in the video

[@chocofro3]

(In a Legally Blonde voice) BLEND...and SNAP!

[@simeonbonev1242]

What are you exactly living off?Are u a freelancer or

[@truegiantpanda]

How would you do this in Blender?? I'm genuinely curious of this.

[@hech-kay5060]

Animation is easier in blender compared to Max

[@truegiantpanda]

@@hech-kay5060 I agree with that 100%

[@blendfam7599]

can u do character Animation vids using blender

[@parentheses7777]

There are already plenty.

[@mcprooo6843]

aww i use blender

[@KwasiMedia]

Blender has the same ability. I use it. Animation is animation and constraints are constraints.

[@mcprooo6843]

@@KwasiMedia I know. I Luv it even though i use v 2.79, its great! My pc can't run 2.8+!

[@mcprooo6843]

@Solid Snake Plus i don't really know if maya is better than blender. Ive never used it.... so ok... id still say blender is GREAT i just said i use blender as this tutorial is on maya.. i never said blender is bad!

[@KwasiMedia]

@@mcprooo6843 ah that sucks, but 2.79 isn't bad. Again it's about the skill level of the animator. More tools doesn't always equal better work.

[@Undy1]

Damn this character's proportions are really ridiculous - his forearms are bigger than his arms... or his head.

[@mr.jgentleman5550]

You know what's funny Some people argue about softwares and who's the best but we don't realise that without the skill and experience, you software's completely useless.