Anh's Blog

Week 2 – Weight and Motion

Post author By Ha Anh Nguyen
Post date 11 October 2026
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In the second week, I learned about the importance of weight and motion in animation, and how they are conveyed through timing and spacing.

Time Charts

The first thing I learned was the time chart. This was a new term to me, as I was not very familiar with the animation workflow. A time chart is a visualisation that illustrates the timing and spacing of an animation.

Timing and Spacing

In particular, timing refers to the number of frames a movement takes, while spacing means the variation of speed. Even with the same timing, different spacing patterns can lead to different speed.

Weight

When talking about weight, I learned how it can be illustrated through speed and an object’s interaction with a character.

For example, under the same force, a heavier object generally takes longer to accelerate than a lighter one. Similarly, when a character holds a ball, the closer the ball is to the character’s hips, the heavier the ball looks.

Bouncing Balls Animation

To better understand weight and motion, we practised animating different types of bouncing balls, including a tennis ball, a beach ball, a bowling ball, and a basketball.

This was my first time using Autodesk Maya to animate something. I was introduced to the Graph Editor and learned how to add keyframes in Maya. I also discovered a very useful feature called Motion Trails, which allows me to visualise an object’s movement directly in the viewport.

While working on this assignment, I also discovered how convenient Maya’s Auto Key feature is. It automatically creates keyframes for modified channels, rather than keying every channel at once. I found this useful for keeping my timeline clean.

As part of the assignment, I researched references for each type of ball to understand how their weight and motion. I analysed the references frame by frame and drew time charts before animating in Maya.

Generally speaking, after receiving feedback from Ting, I realised that my biggest problem was that the spacing in my animation was too even. This made my balls look floating, making it difficult to distinguish their different weights. Also, my timing was also too slow.

Tennis Ball

Reference:

0:19 - 0:25

Feedback:

The overall timing was too slow => cut it in half.
The ball should slow down as it approaches the highest point of its bounce. As it begins to fall, it should accelerate, moving slowly at first and then faster as it approaches the ground.
My time chart was too evenly spaced => overly even spacing in the animation.

Revision:

Beach Ball

Reference:

Feedbacks:

Too much the squash and stretch => over-animation.
The ball moved too slowly compared to its rotation, especially when rolling across the platform.
Both the rotation and the travelled distance when the ball fell from the platform were inaccurate.

Revision:

Bowling Ball

Reference:

Feedback:

Both the timing and spacing were too even, making the ball’s weight less realistic.

Revision:

Basketball

Reference:

Feedback:

The overall timing was too slow.
The spacing was too even, making the ball appear to float.

Revision:

Golden Poses

This week, we continued practising posing. But this time, we used a different rig with a character of different proportions. The assignment included four tasks:

Pose one Hero Pose
Pose one Sitting Pose
Pose one Angry Pose
Make my poses in 360 degree camera

Hero Pose

Feedback:

The chest and hips were too parallel to each other.
Exaggerate the curve of the character’s side profile.
Push the exaggeration further in certain parts of the upper body, such as the chest and shoulders. Some stretching is acceptable when it is intentional.

Revision:

Sitting Pose

Feedback:

Exaggerate the curve in the side view by bending the back further.
The silhouette from the side view looked messy.
I needed to emphasise the curve around the hips.

Revision:

Angry Pose

Feedback:

The direction of the chest did not match the reference.
Push the hips further backwards to exaggerate the pose.
Due to the character’s proportions, my pose lacked balance and looked as though the character was about to fall.

Revision:

Immersion - Unreal Engine 5

Week 1 – Introduction to the Course and Unreal Engine

Post author By Ha Anh Nguyen
Post date 4 October 2026
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This was my very first class at LCC, where I was introduced to the course as a whole and given a brief introduction to Unreal Engine 5.

Course Introduction

During the first half of the class, I became familiar with the course’s learning outcomes, assignments, and expectations. The approach was somewhat different from my undergraduate programme, as this course emphasises on research and analysis. However, I believe this will benefit my career by encouraging me to make more critical thinking. Rather than purely focusing on visual appeal, I will learn to develop ideas with clear intentions and reasoning behind every artistic decision.

I was also introduced to myBlog, where I can document what I have learned each week. I found this useful for demonstrating my working process, reflecting on my thought process, documenting the challenges I encounter, and explaining how I overcome them.

To be honest, I initially thought that writing a blog would be time-consuming. However, I now see it as an opportunity to reflect on what I have learned, not only in class but also through independent study. It also provides a place to document useful tips, techniques, and tutorials I find out while working on projects. Therefore, whenever I encounter a similar problem in the future, I can refer to my previous notes and look for the solutions I have used.

Welcome to Unreal Engine

During the second half of the class, I was introduced to Unreal Engine 5. Although I had already heard about its capabilities, I had never had the opportunity to learn how to use it. Therefore, I was excited to finally explore the software and apply it to this term’s assignment.

One of the features I found impressive was its real-time rendering. Although Unreal Engine is mainly known as a game engine, I believe it also has great potential for creating immersive environments. In addition, the Epic Games Launcher provides access to a huge library of assets and ready-made projects. I have already downloaded several projects to get myself used to the interface and navigation system.

Debrief: “Environment as States of Being”

Regarding the assignment, we were also introduced to the design brief. Although the brief was quite abstract, it provided useful guidance on the project’s requirements and expectations, helping me understand what to include in my work and how to approach it. After the class, I began analysing the brief based on my current understanding and brainstorming some initial ideas for the project.

Based on my understanding of the brief, I identified three key considerations for the project:

Start with something personal: Begin with a place I am familiar with or something that holds personal or emotionally attaches to me. The project should be based on my own experiences and perspective.
Experiment with space, time and proportion: Explore proportions and physical elements such as space and time, and creatively transfer them to create something unexpected.
Support creative decisions with research: Develop the project through relevant research and evidence.

Here are some initial ideas that I have brainstormed:

A Staircase of Memories

A wooden staircase inside an abandoned house, consisting of 23 turns, each representing one year of my life. Each step holds a memory associated with that particular stage of life. The staircase design is inspired by a fish tank. Footprints appear on every step.

An abstract representation of a girl climbs the staircase, sometimes walking slowly and sometimes rushing upwards. The lighting in each section of the staircase reflects the emotions associated with the corresponding stage of her life.

A Room of Memories

A room filled with glass lockers. Inside each locker is a strangely shaped DVD . Some DVDs appear blurry or distorted, representing memories that have gradually faded over time.

At the centre of the room sits a couch facing an old-fashioned television connected to a DVD player.

Character Animation - Maya

Week 1 – Introduction to 3D Animation in Autodesk Maya

Post author By Ha Anh Nguyen
Post date 3 October 2026
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In the first week, I was introduced to the basic 3D workflow in Autodesk Maya, and the concept of Golden Poses in character animation. As I was not familiar with Maya, I also did some self-study by taking a Maya Beginner Course, and learn about 12 Principles of Animation.

What Makes a Golden Pose?

Clear silhouette – no confusing shapes or overlaps,
Includes a clear line of action,
Balance and weight – imagine the body being cut in half to check whether the two sides are asymmetrical,
Exaggerated emotion and personality through secondary motion.

Golden pose refers to a strong and effective pose, while a Hero Pose is a more generic pose representing a character.

12 Principles of Animation

I watched Alan Becker’s video about the 12 Principles of Animation to further understand the elements that contribute to good animation.

The 12 principles are Squash & Stretch, Anticipation, Staging, Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose, Follow Through & Overlapping Action, Slow in & Slow out, Arcs, Secondary Action, Timing, Exaggeration, Solid Drawing, and Appeal. Though this was not the first time I watched and learned about animation principles, this opportunity helped me to remind of those principles when I started to animate for this course’s assignments.

Getting Familiar with Autodesk Maya

I used this tutorial by Animators Journey to start getting familiar with Maya. Although I found the tutorial quite slow and long, it still gave me a better understanding of how to navigate the Maya interface and introduced me to some useful hotkeys that I can use while working.

As I have already had some prior knowledge about 3D principles, I found it relatively easy to start working in Maya. The hardest part was getting used to new hotkeys and navigation system. However, I found that Maya has some useful feathers, such as being able to view the silhouette of my poses in the viewport simply by pressing 7.

Golden Poses Assignment

I decided to challenge myself to the Golden Pose assignment to become familiar with Maya. This assignment included four tasks:

Pose a Hero Pose
Pose a Standing Pose
Pose a Happy Pose
Make my poses in 360 degree camera

After receiving feedback from Ting, I realised my biggest problem when posing was that I tended to make the arms and legs slightly curved rather than straightening them. Therefore, the line of action was not continuous. Moreover, I also learned that when drawing a directional lines for chest, hip, and eyeline, these lines should not be parallel. Otherwise, the pose is going to look unnatural. Last but not least, I also learned that I should try to incorporate as many lines of action as possible from different angles of the pose.

Hero Pose