Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Basic animal walk cycle - quadruped




Sketches of various animals in motion and how they differ, followed by an example of animal walk cycles from "The animators survival kit".

Slow Motion Magpie

As it was fairly difficult to observe actions in real time, I slowed down a video I took of a magpie taking off, so that I could observe key points more easily.


Flight Video 3

seagulls taking off and landing in water

Flight video 2

video of seagull in flight


motion studies - Flight video 1

I filmed various birds during take off, landing and flight - although this proved difficult it allowed me to see the differences in flight style depending on wing span, size and breed.  

Take off, short flight and landing of a pigeon.

Thursday, 15 March 2012

Push Reference




Similarly to the Pull exercise, I decided to get some reference photos of people pushing.

Maya - Push 1st attempt

My first attempt at Maya - I was quite happy with the posing, but some of the movements and angles looked quite unnatural - as well as the character floating/sliding at some stages.

Pull 3

Monday, 12 March 2012

Film reference

I decided that I needed to film the action to accurately animate it - film allows me to see the the movement and strain between poses.

Second test - Pull

After using reference I attempted the stop-motion exercise again - I'm happier with the composition (though the lighting is off in some frames and the camera moves slightly) and character performance in this effort, however, the rock appears to wobble too much when the character is pulling, ruining the illusion of inertia. Also, I found the leg work particularly difficult at the end of the piece and could refine it more - I think it's apparent that I became inpatient at the end at rushed the rock out of frame, which ruined the illisuion of inertia.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Reference photos

Some photos of me and Alice pulling a scarf to use as reference - I tried to make sure the poses were quite strong and exaggerated so I could easily translate them into my animations.  




First test- Pull stopmotion


This is my first attempt at depicting the puppet pulling the rock - I'm happy with the leg movement, and I think the rock does appear to have inertia - however I think there could be more in the timing and character performance.  The camera is also a little high - the composition could be improved upon.

Initial drawings - Pull

Here are some initial quick drawings of a character pulling - I wanted to depict strong poses which portrayed the weight within the rock as well as the effort from the character. I then created a rough story board.