During weeks 4-6 leading up to our submission, I mainly put my focus into working on my personality walk cycle, along with developing my basic run cycle and my personality run cycle for our assignment. I had taken the basic principles we had learned through working on the walk cycles and had learned to speed them up and to adjust the posing to convey much faster paced runs.
Basic Run Cycle-
Below is my basic run cycle for this module. This was one of the early practices I had made when we covered run cycles, which I had decided to use for my submission as I felt it was needed for more time to work on my personality walk and run. My main goals with this cycle were to improve the consistency of my style by using more defined shapes for my character, along with adding more variety to the cycle with perspective and the use of smear frames.
I was critiqued on a few small points of the animation, namely the back swing of the arms being disproportionate to the front ones and the right foot being at a different angle compared to the rest of the body. I took the time to correct these issues, along with cleaning up the lines on the main body and adding some hair as a secondary action. Whilst I personally feel this cycle looks more basic in comparison with my other cycles, I am still content with the results.
Animation Reference-
The run cycle reference in Richard Williams’ Animator’s Survival Guide is the main reference I used for this cycle.
Personality Run Cycle-
Below is the personality run cycle I had made for this assignment. I find myself particularly proud of this one for the more original idea I went with. As stated with my personality walk, I had written ideas for several kinds of walks and runs I could animate, and I got the idea to use both Rain and Snow at once due to the fact that both were readily available to us and had very similar rigs. I thought to have one of them carry the other as a way to challenge myself to see if I could rig a full character to another, and to see if I could portray this action in a believable manner, which I feel I have succeeded in.
Final Render-
Whilst I partially feel that this animation may not convey as much outward personality as the others I have demonstrated previously, I feel like it is made up for with the more subtle movements I have included, such as rain’s hands, along with the extra expressions I had given Snow after his third cycle in the animation to add more charm and variety to the cycle, along with giving me the opportunity to learn more about animating character acting. Additionally, I am also very happy with the way Snow’s mouth is animated as not only do I try to convey him heavily breathing while running, but a small error I made caused him to look like he has smear framing with his teeth when he turns his head to his left, which I found to be charming and decided to keep.
The main critiques I was given on this cycle were also smaller points, mianly focusing on adjusting rain’s legs so they swing more in the cycle, and reanimating Snow’s hands using the IK rig instead of the FK rig to have them move with Rain’s legs more consistently. Overall, I am very proud of how this animation turned out and with the amount of effort and ambition I had put in to give it a more original impression.
Animation References-
Due to the piggyback carry being more suited for slower movement, I couldn’t find many clips of a person carrying another whilst running. Thus, I decided to look to video references to get the posing right, and then I supplemented my research by looking at a scared character run cycle to learn how to properly convey the desperation that I wanted to portray and how to properly distribute the character’s weight as he ran.
Below are the reference videos I used for this cycle.
Piggyback Carry-
Piggyback Conscious Victim ( 02:16 – 02:29)
Scared Animation Reference-
Reference List-
- Combat lens (2021) ARMY BASIC CARRIES FOR INJURED VICTIM. Available at: https://youtu.be/nfJFt3Xf1zw?si=f8fG0EZJ6bbHzUdI (Accessed: 31/10/23)
- FireInTheSole (2012) Scared Run. Available at: https://youtu.be/DYHeXXtaqz0?si=ciRT2cvvzFnLObno (Accessed: 31/10/23)
- Vally Gangie (2021) piggy back carry. Available at: https://youtube.com/shorts/8kiLteMpMZY?si=2DgpH-IlziqiNiGE (Accessed: 31/10/23)
- Williams, R. 2001. The Animator’s Survival Kit. Faber and Faber, United States.