03/10/2024
For week 2, Animation Strategies, we had to create our own 3D and 2D walk cycles. Practising walk cycles is good in the long run, as they are very useful in the animation industry. That’s why we students must study the basics of walk cycles in order to become a well-experienced/professional animator.
In class, we learnt about animation theory and its terminology, the purpose of walk cycles, and its fundamentals. We also focused on technical development such as Blender UI, basic scene setup, and rig exploration using control keys and shortcuts.
For our class tasks, however, we had to create 3D walk cycles using Blender.
3D Walk cycle
When I created this walk cycle, I aimed for a naturalistic walk. I wanted it to move smoothly and slowly so that viewers could analyse the character’s movements. Not too slow, as I didn’t want to mimic a sloth’s pace.
In my spare time, I also made another 3D walk cycle using the lecturer’s video for inspiration.
These are the final results. I wanted my character to have a naturalistic walk, so I aimed for all of my insets to have the same exact poses. In order for me to do this, I had to make sure all my insets had the same amount of degrees to each pose so that the animation and movements were more neat. Afterwards, however, one of my Y rotations was faulty, which made it impossible for me to change it to a certain amount of degrees. This made me have to use 348.77 degrees for my left arm. Making my arm overlap the character’s body as it moved across. This made the character’s movement look unrealistic or rigid.
Even though I couldn’t change the left arm, I could still change parts of the body. I loved the way I presented my hair rig, as it looked well balanced with a sense of weight. Ensuring the hair moved when the body moved side to side, following along with its rotations, is important as it shows accuracy.
I highly disliked the way I made my hands too clenched. I wanted the fingers to curl a little bity but not to look clenched into the palm of the hands. Other than that, I thought I made a good attempt, and I’m looking forward to improving on my 3D walk cycles.
2D Walk cycle
This is my 2D walk cycle that I used using Harmony. I personally thought my character’s lines were way too quick, i.e., legs and arms. Even though the legs/limbs were too fast when moving, it was still a good attempt, and I’m looking to improve further.
Reference
Bibliography
Src=”https://Cdn.shortpixel.ai/Client/Q_glossy, img, ret_img and Director, w_250/https://idearocketanimation com/wp-content/uploads/gravatar/will square small jpg” (2018). Two Kinds of Walk Cycles. [online] IdeaRocket. Available at: https://idearocketanimation.com/2-walk-cycle/.