Animate a Lamp Hopping With Pixo Jr.

In this tutorial we show how to animate a lamp hopping. It's an introduction to character animation, and also a nod to one of Pixar's first animated shorts - Luxo Junior. 

The rig we recommend for this exercise is the Pixo Jr rig - an excellent rig, free for student download at highend3d.com, and the perfect starting point to learn locomotion & mechanics.

Pixo Jr Rig

Pixo Jr offers junior animators a great way to get used to the Maya animation controls without things getting too complex, too quickly.

Lamp Hop Theory Video

To see how the lamp hop mechanics work, start with the theory video below:

Thumbnails

And take a look at the thumbnail sketches to plan the animation.

Lamp Hop Tutorial

To make the lamp hop, follow the tutorial below. The videos are password-protected, available to all our currently enrolled students.

Tutorial
Lamp Hop with Pixo Jr rig

Lamp Hop Part 1
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/287255948

Lamp Hop Part 2

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/287256082

Lamp Hop Part 3

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/287256152

Lamp Hop Part 4

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/287256219

Luxo Jr.

Pixo Jr Rig
Pixo Jr rig was created by animators Amrit Derhgawen and Alex Crouch in 2006.

Pixo Jr Quirks
Like any rig, Pixo Jr has a few quirks. Below are some common problems - and how to solve them.

How to Turn the Lamp On 

To turn on the light bulb inside Pixo Jr.'s "head", first select the yellow star-shaped icon next to the lamp head, which controls the light bulb settings.  In the channel box you can control the intensity of the lamp, the cone angle and also colours. To turn the lamp off completely, set Intensity to 0.

In order to see the effects of these changes, go to the lighting tab in the top left hand corner of your viewport, and click on "use all lights".  Also, you can render the current frame to see the rendered effects of the light bulb.

To turn the bulb itself on, go to Incandescence Red, Green and Blue and set the values to 1. Now the bulb itself will light up.

To further adjust the bulb, go to Outputs in your Channel Box and click on Bulb_Phong. Here you can adjust the settings for the bulb.

Using Pixo in Maya 2016 and up

Pixo Jr works less well in Maya 2016 and up. This is because of Maya's implementation of Parallel Evaluation, designed to make rigs perform faster in the Viewport.  Part of the Pixo Jr's rig is not behaving correctly in this new evaluation mode.

Change Evaluation Mode to DG

Change Evaluation Mode to DG

You can get Pixo Jr to work correctly by going to Windows > Settings and Preferences and then in the Settings > Animation category, change the drop down menu for Evaluation Mode from "Parallel" to the older mode "DG".

Pixo Animation

To see what other animators have done with Pixo Jr., watch the compilation below. 

Lamp Hop Demo Reel

 

Most of all, have fun with Pixo! And be inventive!

Alternative Lamp Rig 
You can also try this lamp rig at Turbosquid. This rig was created by Mangesh Kondalkar.

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.