Wednesday, February 5, 2014

WEEK 5: Game Dev 2 DESN2017 Assignment 2: Leap due next week!

EVH can do it, so can you
How are those jumps going? I'm happy to help. :)

Jumping characters exhibit lost of secondary and overlapping action, and anticipation.

Showing the effort characters take to move their own weight is paramount to creating believable animation of any style.

It's one thing to make the up and down motion read as 'heavy' and affected by gravity. It's quite another to master the mechanics of looping overlapping/secondary action with the character's arms, legs and other details such as tails or capes.

If ever the devil were in any details.. it's animating secondary on a looping action!

Your jump cycles should be usable for avoiding ground pitfalls or traveling forward.
The mechanics of the body in the jump should work well before tackling the secondary action

Remember you will be blending this cycle from and back to the run so you might want to export the start pose from a run position to help it transition smoothly.

WEEK 5: Asset Dev 2 DESN1086 Milestone 2: Walk/Run Due in 2 Weeks

I'm happy to look at your work in progress today. Just ask!

Here's a cool timing tool - tap to get the beats per minute or frames per second:
http://www.all8.com/tools/fpb.htm

Here are a couple of great spots to find live-action reference:
Treadmill Walk: Dude

"Endless Reference"'s You Tube channel (also see sidebar link -->)

This is a little nsfw (not really) but it's so amazing it really belongs here. Felix Sputnik has absolutely nailed the style and timing of animated runs. Lots to learn from here. :D


Animated walks and runs from Felix Sputnik on Vimeo.

There are lots more great examples of hand-drawn cartoon walks here:

WALK CYCLE DEPOT

WEEK 5: Game Dev 4 DESN3012 Second Milestone due next week!

So you should be blocking now. A lot of animators use this method of stepped keys to block out their animation with solid posing and all the major details such as facial expressions, hand gestures, eye direction but NOT lip sync. They check and recheck for strong silhouettes and keep honing their timing until it seems perfect before moving forward.

Here's a great example of blocking from Kevin Webb.
He describes this video as the result of a day's work. I think you will agree that was a productive day indeed.


Animation scene blocking from Kevin Webb on Vimeo.

Here's the final result. Notice all the beautiful overlapping action - it's not just pose-to-pose, he's layered on texture in the timing and made everything fluid and lifelike. 14 seconds, no textures, no lighting, no background, no bs. Just great acting and great animation.


Zooey Lipsync from Kevin Webb on Vimeo.