Blocking and Splining Notes

Blocking:
- use clean numbers. round to the nearest tenth or whole number
- match the pose to the animation, not the reference
- zero out rotations whenever you can (so you don’t get values like -720 or 5343 or crazy numbers that freak it out)
- for every pose, look from every angle in 3D, including the view from the render camera
- Key every channel for each pose (use “S”)
-If there is FK/IK switching in the animation, do it in the blocking

Splining:
-keep the keys intact (don’t move keys on one channel of the pose to another frame). Move poses around by moving all of the keys vertically or horizontally.
-Get everything out of stepped. If a pose is supposed to be held, use the linear key to achieve this (that way you can manipulate the spline).
-use buffer curves (Buffer Curve Post) to track where your curves should be (in relation to your block).

*check out the shortcuts page to see what I picked up for Maya workflow

*Don’t be afraid to delete bad animation. If the poses and inbetweens just don’t work, delete it and reblock. If you do this enough, you’re blocking will get much faster and it will make changes faster.