Acting Reference #56

Here's some good reference of crying from Magnolia. Something to note about crying, its always associated with another emotion. We cry because were happy, sad, afraid, nervous, etc. Knowing whats causing your character to cry and associating that emotion into the animation will make it more believable.

Helpful Hints: Shortcuts!

Working in the video game industry, the name of the game is usually speed. Turnarounds can be very fast and being able to animate quickly is key. Something I find very helpful for animating more quickly is setting up shortcuts. I didn't use many shortcuts when I first started animating, but now I swear by them. If I find myself starting to use a certain function repeatedly, I'll create a shortcut for it. You'd be surprised how much time you can save by not having to navigate through windows & menus.

Here's an image and quick breakdown of the main shortcuts I use. Depending on the shot, I'll sometimes add more specific ones having to do with the rig (selecting controls, hiding body parts, etc)

 For those who don't know, you can customize your own shortcuts in Maya by going to
Window/Settings&Preferences/HotKey Editor
Here it lists all of Mayas default commands and you can Assign New Hotkeys to them. Using the bottom portion you can also create custom ones with your own commands.