All language subtitles for 07-09 Fighting weight

- [Pierrick] There is one art pose

I'd like to talk about and work on

before we go into more
dynamic and spectacular poses.

It's weight lifting poses.

The weightlifting exercise
is a classic Funimation

because it's very hard
and you learn a lot.

We'll do the animation

in the chapter I will publish later on.

I've called this video of Fighting Weight

because there is a lot of forces involved

whenever you are trying to lift any weight

or even your own body, and
we are here to fight gravity.

And in a good fight, you need
to know your enemy, gravity.

So the first thing I will do as usual

is to find the line of action.

It's not that hard to find,

I just have to follow the
spine of the character.

One interesting detail here
is the position of the head.

It seems that he's trying to
lift the weight with his head,

so this is something we will
have to translate in our pose.

Beyond the line of action,

there is a very important
point to be identified here,

and it's the center of gravity.

And as soon as the weight
are leaving the ground,

we have to consider them

as being a part of the center
of gravity of the character.

And they think we can
place the center of gravity

in the middle of the weight,

as they are way heavier
than the character.

Now, our character purpose

will be to pull the center of gravity

in the straight line vertically.

And everything in his
pose is meant to do this.

Look how the arms and the
legs create a triangular shape

that goes straight up.

So we will have to make sure

that we have this tension in the arms

and the compression in the legs.

As usual, I've drawn some
guidelines on top of the character

to get a better vision

of the orientation of the
different features of his body.

In Blender, I will do as we
did in the previous video,

I will switch to object
mode and hide the camera.

Then I will select the weight
accessories I have created

and I will place it in space.

You will find the initial file

with the object already placed in space.

Since we will be only
posing the character,

I won't be creating any interaction

between our character rig
and the current object.

We will see those mechanism
later in the course.

In the meantime, as usual,

I can replace one of the 3D
view on the top right corner

by the image editor and
open the reference picture.

Then I will prepare on the character rig.

I will enter pose mode,

and I will make sure that I add the sword.

Then in the action editor,
I will create a new action.

You don't need to do so since
I'm providing you the file

with the already created action.

And before we start posing the character,

I will switch the end mechanism
to inverse kinematics,

since our character will be
in contact with the object.

Exactly as did when we were
working on the baseball pose.

This way,

we will be able to position
the hands on the weight

and then work the pose
around the hand position.

So let's start posing our character.

I will try to position the hands properly.

But first,

I will lower the center of
gravity of the character,

not of the whole pose, so that
the arms don't get stretched.

But one important detail
on the hand pose here

is that they are slightly
bending toward the outside.

So this is a little detail we
will have to take into account

whenever we are going to
polish a bit our pose.

And I will slightly
rotate the hand controller

toward the outside right away.

From there, I can press Control + C

and then Control + Shift + V

to mirror the pose on the other hand.

You may remember that
in the previous videos,

I've told you that we try to
break symmetry into a pose

to avoid twinning.

But one thing we have
seen regarding twinning

is that it can communicate
stability and strength to a pose.

And this is exactly what we need here.

So this is a pose where we
will be able to use symmetry.

As we did for the previous poses,

I will first try to give
the right orientation

to the center of gravity of my character.

One key component of this pose

is to have the sternum align
with the center of the weight.

Then I will go back and forth

with the bending of the chest controller,

the hips controller,
the head and the neck.

Whenever you're pulling a heavy weight,

your shoulders are pulled down,

so you need to rotate
them toward the ground.

Don't make the mistake
of raising the shoulders

because the character is
trying to raise the weight.

Don't think about what your
character is willing to do,

think about what forces are
involved against your character

and it's fighting against those forces.

The feet will be aligned
with the metal bars

that is holding the weights.

Remember what we have seen

when we have built our first pose,

we try to get the center
of gravity to be aligned

within the shape made
by the contacting point.

So if you have only two contacting points,

then the center of gravity must be aligned

between the two feet.

Based on the knee position
on the reference picture,

as I'm posing the character,

I feel like the weights are too high.

So, I will go back into object mode,

I will select the weight object
and moving along the Z-axis.

From there, I can rework
the hand position,

the torso position and
the shoulder position.

As usual, I will
progressively shape my pose

by moving each controller one by one.

But one of the most important
skill you need to develop

whenever you opposing your
character is observation.

Look at the position of the feet,

they need to be under the bar.

Look at the hips, the butt
is slightly bending backward.

The sternum has to be aligned
with the center of gravity

or the middle of the metal bar.

The head is pulling the weight up

as if it was leading the whole body.

So whenever you are building
your pose, sometime just stop,

watch the feet, watch the hand,

watch the shoulder, watch the head,

and watch their relationship
in space, their position.

Observation, whether it's a pose right now

or everything in your everyday life,

will allow you to catch the
very truth in any motion.

But most importantly, the
behavior or the purpose.

Behavior, whether you're
working on a humanoid character,

a creature, an animal, or even an object,

will bring personality to your character

and personality will bring life to it.

And this is the whole
purpose of this course,

breathing life into our character.

And to build a personality,

you first need to get believability.

This is why you need to observe

and translate what you see
into a believable pose.

And then you can push
it to input personality,

to make it more appealing.

And if people can connect
to something they know

or something they feel they
know into your character,

it will become real to them.

And so, you will be breathing
life into your character.

Back to the posing,

don't forget to look at your elbows

and the overall arm orientation.

And as I feel the left arm is okay,

I will just copy and paste the pose

on the other pole targets.

Then I will go back into object mode

and I will set up the camera.

So I will give it back a horizontal format

by changing the size.

On the reference picture,
there is almost no perspective.

So we can keep a long focal length.

19 millimeters is okay.

And since we can barely see
the top part of the feet,

it means that the camera is
just above the feet level,

maybe the middle of the shin level.

So, I'm moving and rotating the
camera from the camera view.

Choosing its local axis,

as we have seen in the previous videos.

Having this new point of view

does help me to see some
of the mistakes I've made.

I need to raise a bit my character

and slightly rotate the hips inward.

One of the issue I have with my character

is the shape of the butt.

Fortunately, if you
enable the leg tweaker,

you should be able to find some controller

that allow you to reshape a bit the butt.

So I will lower them a bit

and rotate them a bit
inward to reshape the back.

Another thing I did have some
difficulties to get right

is the shape of the head and the neck.

As my character is the bit skinnier

compared to the reference,

and don't forget that the
rig has also its limitation,

I will be able to get a better shape

by simply pushing the head inward.

I feel like it makes a
huge different in the pose.

We do feel like the neck is
pushed with blood pressure.

Finally, I will use some of
the tweaker inside the foot

to flatten the foot,

as if there was a lot
of weight on top of them

and it flattened them.

One interesting thing on the reference,

it's the shape of the shoes.

It seems that there is something
to raise a bit the heel.

It's probably to keep balance,

avoiding the foot to get absolutely flat

and falling backward.

Regarding the hand pose,

I start with the pinky because
he does a very special shape

whenever I'm looking at the reference.

It feels like it's not totally closed,

that the first joint is
not rotated that much.

Another thing that I'm doing

is that I will slightly scale each finger

using the first joint

and scaling them on their local X-axis.

And they will also do this
on some of the pan builds.

With the weight and the
pressure applied upon the hands

and the fingers, they are
squashed against the metal

and it makes them looking larger.

So whenever you are posing the hands,

while you should favorize rotation,

don't forget that you can scale the bone,

you can move them also in space.

The important thing as
usual is what we see.

So use the whole range of
transformation you have

to get where you want to be.

Once you're happy with your end pose,

select all the bones in the hand

and mirror the pose onto the other hand.

While posing, I did feel like
the weight were a bit too big,

so I've scaled them down.

From there, I did some minor tweaking

on the pose of the character.

But I just wanted to
straighten a bit the legs

since they are a bit angling backward.

While I wasn't able to
perfectly match the pose,

it feels a little better

with the legs slightly bent forward.

But as a final touch, you can
enable the face controller

and create a slightly angry face.

And I feel like we can
call this pose done.

It's time to push the pose.

And it was a little harder than usual

because we generally
amplify the line of action.

We often elongate the arcs

to amplify the motion
or the sense of motion.

And the first thing I was thinking of

was to raise the character.

But in the end, what we want
to communicate here is weight,

the fact that our character
is pulled toward the ground.

So what I did instead was to
compress the line of action.

I've shortened the torso,

I've made arm as straight as possible

using the tweaker bones.

And since I wanted my
character to be squashed,

I've scaled up most of the
parts of the character,

but only to make them larger, not longer.

So I'm inflating the torso.

I will do the same with
the thigh, with the chest,

using the tweaker controllers
available upon the whole rig.

Increasing the thigh volume
better sells the effort,

and we feel like the
character is going to explode.

But I've also slightly inflated the neck.

And since I've built a bit of a face pose

on the previous pose,
I've decided to push it.

So I will enable the
tweaker bone of the face

and I will raise a bit a lower lids

and raise a bit the cheeks.

This way, the whole body of our character,

from the tip of the toes to the eyes,

will communicate the fact that
he's pulling on this weight

as hard as he can.

Again, as an animator, you
have to communicate something.

I've built this rig

so that we don't have
too many facial stuff

that are going to be distracting.

But with those Spider-Man's like eyes,

that will be a shame if we
don't try to shape them.

And beyond that, this is another tool

to sell the pose we
are currently building.

From there, since I've
slightly moved the weight,

I will go back into object
mode, select the weight,

add a keyframe on its position

and reposition it on the previous pose

so that I can jump between the
two poses and compare them.

And I feel like I can
call this posing done.

While the difference between
the two poses are pretty subtle

I feel like the new
pose better communicates

the fact that our character
is trying to lift this weight.

So I'm pretty happy with the results.