I had initially intended on animating a character lifting a heavy object onto a table.  This idea stemmed from watching student animations from previous years.  Jack Foley’s body mechanics animation was especially impressive and so I began looking through similar scenes.

Another student had worked on a dance for their animation which I thought looked very good.  I found someone who animates characters such as Samus dancing which I found very funny and would work well for my short body mechanics animation.

However, I continued to look for more ideas and eventually settled on animating a parkour sequence.  This is the video I found as reference –

They take stunts from Marvel movies and copy them, clearly showing how they are done.  From this, I chose to do the hulk jumping over an object and launching himself further using his hands beneath him.  This one appealed to me the most and I am excited to start working on this animation.

I recorded the section of the video that I wanted to use as reference so that I could have it loop and be easier to watch back without going too far into clips on either side.

I decided to use the jack rig as I had enjoyed working with it previously and thought it would be better to stick with a rig I was familiar with as I knew this animation was going to be challenging considering my lack of previous experience.

I started by blocking out the leg movements and where I wanted the character to move in the scene, also adding the box he was going to jump over.  For me I feel it’s easier to focus on the legs first and then move to the arms instead of working at both.  Splitting up the joints into sections to animate allows me to keep everything more cohesive and less overwhelming looking ahead.  I made him lean forward during the run at the start to show he is trying to run fast, and straightened his back as he approaches close to the box to show he is slowing down slightly and preparing to jump.

Once I had the legs blocked out the way I wanted them, I began working on the arms.  I made the hands into fists to copy my reference.  I used dope sheet to work on the timing of the animation, however I think it still might be a little too fast.

Upon looking over my animation without stepped preview enabled, I noticed how messily the limbs were moving.  I tried to fix this in the graph editor and tame it by adding more keyframes in-between, but after some time opted for starting over in a new scene.  This was because I was unhappy with the initial blockout/position of the character and I think I can definitely improve the run at the start.  I feel as though it looks more like a fast walk cycle than a run.

This time the process was far easier as I was able to look at what went wrong last time and avoid it going into my second attempt.  I made him take longer more bouncy strides at the start which looks far better than before.

I blocked out the key poses for the legs until he was over the box and then worked on fixing some timing issues in dope sheet.  In some frames the feet went through the floor, so I went through and fixed them.  The result looked very good and made me feel much more confident going forward.

Blocking out the arms was quite simple as I had the legs for reference.  When he got to the box, I tried to make the arms look as though they were helping to force his body up.

One problem was the body mesh twisting as I tried to move the arm upwards.  I was able to fix this by moving the elbow out instead of being tucked so closely into the body.

After asking my friends if they could spot anything I should improve on what I had so far, they mentioned making the jump anticipation longer.  It definitely looks far better with more time spent on the down pose before jumping over the box.  It’s very helpful to have new sets of eyes look at my project as sometimes it becomes hard to notice when I have been working on it for too long.

Once I felt confident with the first section – the run and jump – I began to work on the second portion.  I went back to my reference and looked at how they positioned their body when their hands were under them on the box.  Working on this pose first allowed me to see where I needed the character to land on the box.

I then animated the in-betweens, trying to make a smooth transition between the arms being above the character to being below them about to push them over to land on the other side of the box.  Moving the hips, I tried to make a fluid swing which wasn’t in time with the arms to make it look more natural and less mechanical.  I’m really happy with how this turned out.

I continued to tweak this section of the animation as I think it is the most important part.

Switching from my pose to pose method, I began working straight ahead as I felt it would give me a better result for the landing.  I wanted to make it look like the left leg was pulling the rest of the body forward, so I sped it up to look as though it was kicking while the rest of the body was more loose.  I had thought bringing the arms back to the characters side after being under him would be hard as I had to make sure they also didn’t go through the box.  However, by closely looking at my reference and studying the angle he brings his arms back was very helpful and I think went very well.  I had been worried it would look like the shoulders were breaking because the arms were unnaturally far back.  As the arms were twisting back to come down to his side, I also made the fingers clamp back into a fist.

When the first foot meets the ground, I started to tilt the rest of the body to make it look almost like it was being caught by the second foot.  I think this better shows the recover after he lands and then starts walking off the screen.

I’m very proud of this animation and it was very fun to work on.  I will definitely be trying to animate more like this to push myself.

Sadly I didn’t have time to finish a second body mechanics animation, however this is something that I’m going to work on over the break.  It was from one of the ideas I had been looking at before deciding on doing the parkour shot.