ANIMATION STRATEGIES
For this task I wanted to use one of my own characters that would be simple enough to work with to create a walk cycle and run cycle. to gain references for this character I looked at robot movements as well as studied through other artists takes on walk cycles and run cycles frame by frame to understand how they capture a characters personality.
I particularly studied the walk cycle animation of a character from tmnt due to the characters similar feet proportion’s however I later went away from this reference and focused on attaining the movements before attaining mass and weight to the body proportions specifically the difficulty of the feet being triangular them being metal they don’t bend from my initial design and concept art i realised i didn’t design this character with animation in mind but didn’t let it stop my attempt to figure it out
i ran into difficulty creating a robotic movement while also trying to add detail not knowing initially what i was doing in my first number of attempts it turned out pretty bad and was out of sync and way too detailed that i couldn’t get the movements of the walk correct the height and bending of the knees kept changing and the walk looked more like sliding than walking
I conducted more research and expanded my research
-angles and personalities
body movement and weight with overlapping action
body mechanics reference
i looked at some fundamental animation techniques for pacing and arcs in animating walk cycles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k25G83FqiEI
walk cycle:
attempt one:
the detailed version however was too complex
had to reel it back abit and simplify the pacing and timing as it ended up to fast i added too much detail that everything was very flat and stiff i made a new plan and attempted again i simplified my character down into animated shapes with simple lines and weight that i could animate better
the simplified shape is a cylinder body i used stick legs and arms this meant sticking with mainly stick figure outlines for the limbs while keeping the base a cylinder mass to work with to add life and dimension
simple walk with some minor detail however timing was still off
i found that i got better with this attempt it had more motion and depth less detail and more accurate mechanics however i did not think that the leg movements were lined up correctly and i l believed i could do it better and wanted to try again
attempt three:
i decided for this attempt to learn the walk cycle more in depth and really study it to understand the characters personality in the shape heavy sturdy and a happy attitude looking at 3D shapes helped to build the depth structure of weight and body language into a better expression i also made the key frames longer to emphasis the action of walking on impact
i decided to in this attempt draw the character the different angles i decided to lessen the detail but add more work or studies as to better learn how to create a walk cycle from many sides and angles
after creating the walk cycle i realised the timing for each of the body’s legs were not lined up when walking each step was out of sync and i believed there was something missing that i couldn’t really place.
i got some feedback about this and a red line was drawn i was told the impact frame of the leg making contact was not presented well enough
i focused on fixing the timing pace and movement of each walk at different angles to be more in sync with the impact frames once i got that adjusted accurately i then finally focused on the main body’s motion when walking keeping the character on model while adding weight as the leg impacts the floor with the knee bending i had the body go down with a bob after all of that i added the arms pairing them to Convey different emotional traits of this character as i believed it would make the walk more interesting as i ran out of time to add detail back to the simple shapes and stick limbs giving the arms personality of emotion’s each different it highlights my skills in animating with the simplicity of work i had to utilize
overall i learnt a lot studying in different angles i learnt how to align the character on model and how to convey personality with the walking by using the arms and point of contact key frames. i believed each attempt i improved greatly and it taught me a lot. i however believe the walk cycle still needs improved specifically keeping the cylindrical body more accurate as i believe i added to much motion that some frames have the base body widen too much. its specifically seen on the third walk cycle with a straight forward walk i believe i had the body widen to much alongside an error with the leg on the right being to close to the centre of the model as the character walks the legs looks off in some frames
starting the run cycle my first attempt the body felt to static although the timing was correct the bending in the knees needed to be fixed alongside fixing the issue that the character didn’t seem like they were truly running
after receiving some feedback by a friend in a studio for animation of mine who’s experienced in the field she told be to add more weight and bob motion towards the main body as the character impacts the floor she also taught me the way shapes move when they have impacts and i noticed from the example feedback in red over my animation highlighted a different way a cylinder could move it made me think more on the dynamic of shapes and i believe i should definitely study this more as shape language from what i learnt is extremely important
after working on the feedback i took a different approach to my animating thinking more on how weight mass and angles represent when movement happens rather than focusing on how the character should run having learnt how to correctly move the legs from the walk cycle i believed on the run cycle i would put my efforts into the emotion of the run and the movement of the main shape
i started fixing up the body and adding the details and tweaks such as the arms the arms i believe did not work out as well as i would have liked as i believe they are a little off time with the rest of the body to slow but it adds to the characters heavy personality so i think it worked to my benefit
id overall say i don’t think i precisely got the end result my feedback had suggested although i fixed things and added motion i do not believe i added enough motion in the main body however i have learnt a lot from this mistake