Week 9 - Sigh Cycle

Last week I did not make animation progress. This was mainly due to the Alpha presentation within the AGAP module which took up much of my schedule. However, I have returned to work this week and plan to work hard in the following weeks to make up for it.

This week I finished the sigh animation. It's pretty simple, consisting of a large breath in (puffing the chest out), followed by a large breath out before he straightens himself out to his beginning position. Initially I was planning to just do the body animation but this was very quick and the animation didn't look like he was sighing without any facial changes.

The animation mainly consists of back movement, shoulder rotation, head rotation and facial expressions. When taking a breath in, I've made the mouth reflect this along with a slight increase in eye size and eyebrow height. I made sure to exaggerate these motions to make them more obvious visually. On the breath out, he furrows his eyebrows, squints his eyes and blows out with large cheeks making for an interesting animation to watch. I actually really enjoyed creating this animation as it was quite amusing to update all the facial animations.

Sigh Animation (Mid-breathing Out)

Next I'm moving onto the run cycle. I've done some research and it's reasonably similar to the walk cycle but with quicker timing and larger steps. Luke is going to show me his as he has already blocked his out. Luke has been working on putting the animatic together in movie maker and he is nearly done now, he was also kept busy with the alpha presentation.

Week 7 - Walk cycle

This week I moved onto the walk cycle. Once again I decided to focus on finishing the animation rather than adding a lot of character into it at this stage. Once again I used the same reference image as my first attempt on the project.

It went much more smoothly this time. I asked for feedback a couple of times from Luke at various landmarks on the project. I first made the legs and hips work. I then refined the timing of the individual keyframes, trying not to use too many so I could make it smooth. I then added a slight rotation to the shoulders along with a natural arm swing. The head also was given a small bob for when each step hits the floor. It took a while, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how decent it looks. I will probably revisit the animation to give it more swagger though at some point.

Walk Cycle

Reference Image

Following this I started creating the bare bones of the sigh animation. I did several image checks in the mirror and found that most of the movement is within the chest and back which require very few keyframes. I got the basic movement of the back and chest in along with some shoulder and head movement too. I plan to finish this animation next time.

Week 6 - New Idle

This week, I began my new project with Luke. I worked on setting up my new rig first. The character was meant to look fairly normal so it was quite similar to the initial rig that you have, just with a different hair style and a little more muscled to give him more of an 'action' feel to him. As for the idle animation itself, it was very similar to my first idle animation except putting into practice my new knowledge of keyframes and smooth animating. It doesn't convey much character and the face has very little done to it at this stage but the body is animated smoothly. I decided that I would focus on adding character at the end once everything is done to a passable extent. 

The New Rig in the Idle pose

Luke this week was focused on creating his own rig and refining the storyboard more. So far the project seems to be going well. Next week, I plan to create the walk cycle though I am a little worried about how smoothly it will go considering my problems on the previous rig. 

Week 5 - Change of Project and Group

This week had some major changes for my animation module. After looking over my groups progress, me and Luke (one of the members in my group) decided that we were worried about the progress of the team. Our other team mates had only really created Idle animations despite being so far into the project and Luke didn't like the project idea we had. After a bit of discussion between us, we spoke to the module leader and decided to pair up and create a new project with just us two.

I was happy with this for a number of reasons. Luke is a hard worker and also a skilled animator, meaning that I can trust him to do his part of the project. He is also a talented traditional artist meaning that creating an animatic and storyboard for a new project would not take long at all. Luke wanted to this for similar reasons (except I'm not known for being a particularly strong animator) and also wanted to swap the project to something a little more interact-able between the rigs.

We discussed what we wanted to create. I wanted to ditch super powers completely and work with basic humans as I didn't feel comfortable going away from this. I also didn't want the rigs to interact physically, like in a fist fight. This was because I felt it would be difficult for two people to work with such closely interact-able characters. We came up with a basic idea (Luke had already been thinking about this). Luke began sketching it quickly and by the end of the session we had a basic storyboard.

The Basic Storyboard 

Following this, we decided that Luke would animate the bad guy whilst I did the good guy. This is because Luke had already created a basic vaulting animation which is one of the key animations so it would save him work. 

We decided to plan it out well this time. Luke volunteered to create the animatic whilst I laid out what animations we would need. The animations I need are: Idle cycle, Walk cycle, Run cycle, Pulling out a gun and shooting, Sigh cycle and a head twist along with a small section of lip sync. Whilst I had to change my rig for this project, I did get to a lot of the same animations as I had previously done so I felt reasonably confident going into it. First I will create the idle before moving onto the walk cycle. 

Week 4 - Problems and Walk Cycle

This week I've been having a fair few problems. Initially, I planned to finish the extended idle. However, I hit a wall with that animation. Because of the way I twisted the arm to get him to flex his bicep, when refining the arm the shoulder started twisting in on itself in an unnatural way. I tried several ways to get around this. I found that I could get around it by using more keyframes with smaller movements but this would involve restarting my work. This frustrated me a little so I decided to keep the work I had for reference and move on to a different animation for now. I decided on the walk cycle as we had gone over it in class so I understood the basics of the animation.

I began by trying to transition him into the first step. This stumped me. I couldn't seem to get a natural looking transition between the idle and first step. After being blocked by this for a while, I decided to simple do the walk cycle separately and creation the transition another time. Whilst creating the walk cycle, I worked using the following image for reference.

Walk Cycle Reference

Initially, I planned to give him some swagger in his walk but I decided later that it would be easier to make the base walk cycle and then edit it later to give it more character. Overall, the walk cycle is nearly done, It loops and works reasonably well but needs a few changes still. The arms seem a little robotic and the footsteps need to be larger. Also, I feel that the head needs to bob to an extent for emphasis. Despite this, I feel I'm making steady progress.

The Walking Man

Week 3 - Extended Idle Start

This week, I started work on an extended idle pose after finishing clean up on the normal idle animation. This would be used in a game if you stood still for a little while and needs to flow in and out of the standard idle pose. As the super strength super hero, he's naturally going to flex his biceps. 

Super Cocky Pose - Flex Them Guns

I started with my base pose file and moved from there. I first focused on getting the fist into position. I had a couple of issues with this regarding how his arm turns to get it up there. I ended up flexing in the mirror repeatedly until I understood the motions. First I had the arm raise to the outside whilst bringing his hand out in front of him before turning the arm outwards and raising the forearm. I then added in a few other rough movements such as puffing his chest out and adding a cheeky grin for good measure.

It's still very rough but if it works, I feel that this animation will add a lot of character to the superhero and make the animation more successful. This week I'll be working on this animation for the majority most likely. 

Week 2 - Idle/Breathing Pose

Following from week 1, I got critique on my idle pose. I found I had made a few mistakes with the animation. I added in many keyframes to the animation when in reality it only needs 4 or 5 keyframes to get a smooth animation. This meant that it actually became harder to get a smooth animation. They also commented on the timing of the animation. Whilst it was semi-realistic compared to a real human, I got given the advice of exaggerating the animation, to make it more interesting and obvious as to what he was doing. I also decided that if it was going to be a super strong superhero, he needed more character, to give off the feeling of cockiness to the audience.

Because of all these points, I decided to start fresh. First thing I did was make the base pose for him more interesting and cocky. I ended up giving him a bit more swagger by making him put his weight on one side of his body and resting his hand on his hip. This gives him the appearance of someone holding them self very confidently.

The Cocky Pose

From here, I started working on the animation. I was more specific with where I put my keyframes this time around. I also decided to look at the model itself to see what I actually needed to animate for this. I decided to animate his hips, shoulders and head. These three were the only areas that needed animating due to the nature of the hips and shoulders moving the majority of the body from their controllers. Keyframes were put in only 3 places, the start, middle and end. He starts in a breathing out pose, breaths in for half the animation, then breaths out. I need to sort the specifics out but it's nearly done and coming together well.