Real time speeds

This module requires that we animate in 24 frames per second (real time), and therefore I set it to that playback speed in Maya. Maya already recognises that real time is 24 frames per second and so there was not many settings the required changing.

After animating and putting the final tweaks into my animation I realised that my animation after the starting blocks was too slow in some parts and too fast in other to look realistic. To try and correct this I used the 'Dopesheet'. I spent a fair few hours trying to select and move the keyframes left and right to speed up and slow down the animation. The result was better than what I had to begin with, but it was still looking quite jerky and I couldn't figure out how to resolve the issue. The only way to do it that I knew of was to use the dopesheet.

I had been taught to make sure when I move part of the rig to keyframe all of it so that on the dopesheet you could see thick black bars across all of the different parts of the rig. It was great advice as it makes it easier to see what is happening, and makes sure that no one part moves randomly by accident due to movement further down the line in the time slider.

I think though, what with trying to correct random arm rotations and such, that I over complicated the dopesheet needlessly. By this time though It was far too confusing to sort out at the end and clean up / simplify.

Something that I'm definitely going to keep watch on next time I animate.

The below image illustrates what I mean by over complicating the dopesheet. When I look at it I feel I've made it too intimidating to try and clean up without destroying my animation keyframes.