This week, we worked on the Advanced Animation Shot (Blocking Plus) assignment. The focus was on improving the blocking and making the acting choices clearer before going into the polish stage. We had to make sure the main poses, timing and movement of the character were readable, so the shot already made sense even without all the final details.
For this version, I focused on pushing the body mechanics and making the performance feel less stiff. I tried to make the important poses clearer and worked more on the timing between the different actions. The goal was not to fully polish the animation yet, but to make sure the base of the shot was strong enough to continue working on.
During the week, we also had a workshop about AnimBot. This was useful because AnimBot gives extra tools inside Maya that can help with animation workflow. It can make it easier to adjust timing, copy poses, mirror poses and clean up animation faster. This workshop helped me understand how these tools can support the animation process, especially when going from blocking plus to polish.
Overall, Week 17 was mainly about strengthening the shot before the final polish. It helped me see that blocking plus is an important stage, because the big acting choices and movement need to work first before adding smaller details like blinks, eye darts and facial animation.