I have begun animating.

This is just my initial pass at the first few scenes. There are already a few things that I have changed (such as the camera angle of the second shot, it was too close in and the roll of the camera was too much) and if I get time I will be going back and changing things. I am still not happy with the man's walk cycle at the beginning, but it is satisfactory for now, I really have to get cracking with the rest and start rendering!!!

Animation Test

This is an animation test. I did not need to make a perfect walk cycle. I just wanted to test out my rigs to find any pitfalls, and to discover how to use Maya's animation tools.

so far I am quite happy with the way the rig for the man works. It is simple and does the job. However, I am not so happy with the Dog rig, I think I need to have less spine controls that drive the spine bones. Also I need to reconsider the feet setup, my dog design pays no attention to the actual physiology of a dog's leg which is why I went for the reverse foot setup on the dog. However after animating I found it hard to get them to look right in motion. I will be doing some more experimenting with the dog to find more suitable solutions.

It has taken quite a while to get comfortable with Maya. However, I now feel I have overcome the main obstacles presented with converting to the new software.