Walk Cycle 2

This is my first completed walk cycle with inbetweens, I am very proud of this animation however I know it needs improvements. By taking in the feedback I received I realised the body may be coming to far foward when it's pushing positions, which would completely throw you off balance in a real walk. Also the back arm when swinging at the back is extremely jumpy and inconsistent, this is something that can be easily fixed and redrawn. The front foot is coming down quicker than the back foot, I'm not quite sure how I've done this so it could be difficult to rectify. There is also a slight pauses in the arms where I have miss judged the spacing and I have missed out the last frame of the sequence as you can see there is a jump. I'll now fix these mistakes to line test again.

Walk Cycle 1

So here it my walk cycle consisting of only the key frames. It all seems to be okay at the moment, but I will now add the in betweens where I need to focus on the spacing and foot landing sequences. I anticipate this to be quite difficult and will have to go back and fix errors.

Walk Cycle 1

Walk cycles need to be animated as if the character is walking on the spot this would then be looped instead of redrawing frames. As this is my first walk cycle I shall keep the character as simple as possible so I can work on perfecting the movement and focusing on the spacing etc. The legs take it in turn to support the bodies weight, while the arms move from side to side.
The walk cycle usually begins with the contact position, here the weight is on neither foot, all the key frames are drawn out to begin with and then the inbetweens of them are drawn after. The passing position is where the passing leg moves across the weight baring leg. This is frame number 7. The down position gives a strong feeling of weight and the arms are at their widest point. The up position is where the body pushes itself forward. All these keyframes have opposites of each other to create the main elements of the animation.

Ball Bounce 3

This is the final outcome of my third ball bounce, I have made the rise of the ball slower to show it losing energy. Both of the drops shown here are quite fast, which I think shows character as the ball hangs in the air slightly each time it starts to drops. This animation is around 50 frames and was exported at 25fps. I think I was able to get a really good sense of timing on this animation and the position of the balls all seem to be correct.

Ball Bounce 3

This is the outcome of the line test, as you can see in the video, I have mixed up a few frames so the ball goes backwards at a few stages. This is a mistake which can easily be rectified. I also think the first hit is strange compared to the second one so I'll take out one of the frames and make sure it's correct. Another improvement I am going to make the way the ball bounces off the ground on each hit, when I watch it I feel the ball is coming off the ground too quickly, which is incorrect as it should be losing energy...not gaining it. 

Ball Bounce 3

I have now planned out a third ball bounce I feel I will be able to create a lot more character with a lighter ball, creating more bounces. In this test the spacing will be closer together during the highest points of the bounce to show it's going faster. For a bounce like this the amount of frames will decrease for each hit. Here I've shown only the main keyframes, I'll now fill in the inbetweens and line test with Dragon.

Ball Bounce 2

Here you can see the change of the bounce, I am still not completely happy with it. I really like the drop of the ball, but the bounce off the ground doesn't flow with the movement of the ball. However I think it's a lot better than the first attempt. I will now try a completely different ball bounce to see if I can make improvements with my technique.

Ball Bounce 2

This is my second ball bounce plan, here I have changed the bounce of the ball to make it seem heavier. The bounce is a lot shorter and higher. I'll fill in the missing frames and re-test the ball bounce using Dragon. 

Ball Bounce 2

This is my second test video, after rotoscoping my drawings of each frame using the program Dragon I exported the images as a Quicktime movie so I could see the improvements I could make. This consists of 24 frames, my first test was 22 frames but I added 2 more to the beginning to make it smoother and hang in the air longer, giving it more character which you can see in this uploaded video.

By watching this again and again I thought the bounce off the ground travelled too far in comparison to the weight of the ball, the bounce should be higher and shorter. This has also been shot on 2's but I think it's extremely fast. So now it's back to the drawing board. 

Ball Bounce 1

 

Learning the ball bounce technique is a common starting point in learning animation and this is where I have begun. It illustrates fundamental skills that will forever come up through animating. This exercise will mainly help my timing and spacing skills when drawing movement. 

I begun this exercise by drawing out a plan, I decided the size of the ball and the weight, which effects how fast the ball drops and bounces, also how much the ball squashes and stretches. Here I have an image of my plan, I drew in the keyframes of the ball, where it begins, hits the ground and where it finishes, this then allows me to fill in the movement of the ball. 

The task was to be able to give the ball character, spacing is a big part of this as making the increments wider gives the ball faster movement and vise versa. 

My ball is heavy, so the drop will be fast with very little squash and only a small bounce off the floor. 

Animation Principles

This is my blog for Animation Principles, here I'll be uploading all my work from these classes. Analysing and evaluating my work, going through each step of the animation process.