A basic open mouth can make a lot of vowel sounds. Mainly “aw, ah, eh”… the shape of the mouth can be change depending on the emotion of the character. The “oh,ah,ooh” sounds cannot be a smile shape however. Even if the character is happy. For the “la, el ,th” sounds the tongue touches your teeth of the roof of your mouth. “Duh and Juh” sounds the mouth is open with only the teeth showings. Similarly the “ch” is teeth but more puckered and going forward and stretching out. For “F and V” sounds the top teeth will touch the lower lip. Lastly, a simple closed mouth is used for “P,B,M” sounds.
The above are the notes I got from Kuzillon on YouTube.
Body mechanics
If you don’t use Holds & Settings in animation this will lead to all the movements feeling really clunky and harsh. There should be a natural fall off to every move and also natural pauses in the action.
Strong spacing is basic, but, beginner animators will mess it up by not using the spacing. Spacing is how you create good weight, snap and fluidity in animation.
In animation you should always make sure when a character moves it feels like their entire body is connected. An arm will pull the torso. The body will move and everything else drags behind it. No body part will feel completely isolated.
As humans, we naturally move in arcs. This means we have a natural flow of an arc shape to the way we move our bodies.
When looking at animations you will never see each separate action or major key pose even if there is a hold. It never feels like it’s holding for too long or that the character has stopped completely. Each action flows into the next. Just as one pose holds settles for a moment the movement takes off somewhere else.
These are the notse I got from Rusty Animator on YouTube.
Conclusion
For this assignment I initially wanted to try more 3D animations but ended up deciding to stick with 2D animations for my final animations as I understand how to do 2D better. I also find it easier to do and I feel I can get a better end result. I still find that my 3D animations are stiff and choppy. I struggle with the getting the animations to look smooth and I struggle to understand how edit animations correctly in the graph editor. I always end up making the animation look worse. In the future I want to do more 3D animation and have a better understanding of how they work, so I intend to practice in my spare time. If I were to do this again, I would like to try to do more 3D animations.
I would also try to make the movement of the character flow more smoothly, I would do more research and spend more time practicing animations. I intend to use this as a learning experience. I will look back on my older animations to see how I can improve upon them and make sure I add more body mechanics to give life to my animation so they don’t look stiff and flow better with natural movements.
I found it easiest to do the basic movements in proceate and the secondary actions like hair clothes and even doing the mouth movements in Harmony. I am still trying to get to grasps with Harmony. I do find it much easier to use this time than in the past, so that is positive, and I was able to create one animation in my own art style that didn’t look adventure time inspired.
I am starting to like animating in Harmony much more over animating in procreate. This is mainly because I can add in audio for lip sync or even just to make my animations more interesting and I find it easier to animate secondary actions on a separate layer. I like using a different brush for getting the rough animation which procreate allows you to do has it has a lot of different brushes to choose from. In the future I would like to try and see if I can import new brushes into Harmony to see if that will make doing the rough animation more enjoyable. I still need more practice using Harmony, especially when it comes to colouring my animations. I colour my animations by copy and pasting the line art layer onto a layer below, but If I find an animation error or what to change something in the animation I fine that the line art is easy enough to fix but the colour layer not so much as things get a little messy.
For this animation I animated the characters facial expression going from one expression to another. I also added a bit of a squash and stretch in the character head as she reacts. I would like to go back I do some further editing to this animation in my spare time and add some movement into the hair and also fix any errors I made.
This is a head turn animation practice. It’s not the best movement as was it is a bit stiff and doesn’t have as much character to it as I would like. She is also is not very expressive in her facial animation. In future animations, I will make sure to work on facial expressions and movement. I do like the hair movement of the animation but the choppy face animation and lack of expression really bring this animation down over all, but as a test, it works.
This is the lip sync animation we did in class. I think this turned out okay. Especially since I have only tried lip sync animation once ore twice beforehand on my own.
I did the body movement animations in procreate and then added the secondary actions and mouth movements in Harmony. Once I was happy, I did the line art and colours. I did each part of the animation one at a time so I didn’t confuse myself.
After feedback I made the first girl look back at the green girl to show she is talking to her.
If I was to redo this animation I would have the first two clips have slower movement as I think they move rather fast and then get much slower for the rest of the animation.
Audio clip from Rooster Teeth’s RWBY volume 3 chapter 2
Reference for lip sync
I had tried to do lip sync in the past, but I was doing it blind as procreate doesn’t have the option to import audio.
I think I now have a better understanding of how to do lip sync animations. Looking back on this old animation, I would now add more expressions to her face and also try to make her movement more smooth and less choppy, but I think it is good for my very first attempt as doing lip sync.
The animation above was done in class. It’s hard to tell at first, but because of the frame rate, I think the character’s jump is too slow but the other movements look fine.
This was my original jump. Later on the jump got changed to a running jump so I had to change this. If I had more time I would like to have tide up this animation as I feel like I could have had a better result if I put more effort into it.
For practice I decided to follow this YouTube tutorial for a running jump animation.
After I did the tutorial I tried to do my own version. I originally wanted to do this jump in 3D but I could get the animation to look right especially the roll out of the jump so I decided to do my running jump in 2D.
The sketch animation was doing in procreate and cleaned up in Harmony.
This is my old version of the running jump but I didn’t like how it looked so I redid the line art.
I test did a 3D animation for a running jump but couldn’t get it to look right so I decided to do redo the running jump with a 2D animation which I think turned out much nicer.
For the running jump I decided to do a leap jump. After some feedback I added in a frame to help make her arm movement make more sense .
For this running jump animation I wanedt the jump to have character to it and not be a basic jump. I wanted to do a dance jump.
I ended up doing two dances jumps, a Calypso back leg bend and a centre leap.
I used this video from dancedeja on YouTube as reference for both of my 2D animations.
The animation above is one done in class. I think this looked good for a rough practice animation.
For this weight lift animation I decided to do an animation of someone picking up a cat. I liked how in the reference video the girl goes but down slightly to readjust her back arm to scoop up the cat, which I tried to get in my animation. After some feedback, I tried to make it more obvious that she’s is not struggling to pick up the cat. I did this by adjust her shoulder movement rather than just changing her hand placement.
I did the sketch of the animation in procreate and imported the animation and did line art and colouring in Harmony.
After feedback, I made sure her dress movement and hair movement stop at different times at the end of the animation. Doing this really adds depth to an animation and makes it look more dynamic and more interesting overall.
I wrote down research notes that I used, or had in mind, while I was doing the walk and run cycle animation for this assignment.
(The research notes above I have taken down are from Doodley YouTube videos on animating arms and animating legs.)
I took screenshots of my animations and added annotations to help convey the notes I used or had in mind while I was animating the walks and run cycles.
There are some notes that I had taken down but didn’t necessarily add with the annotations. However, I kept those in mind while I was animating.
There are a few key poses while doing a walk cycle. The first is is the contact. This is when the foot first meets the ground. You should see this mainly at the back of the heel, Down is the next key pose. This is when the front foot is flat on the ground and the back foot is starting to lift up. Next we have Pass. This is mid walk so this tends to look awkward in a still image. The front foot is passing backwards and the back is passing forwards. Up is the next pose. This is the highest point in a walk cycle. This is when the body will start to drop down again when it makes contact with the ground. The steps then repeat for the other leg and this makes a full walk cycle loop.
In a run cycle there is an extra keyframe when your character “pushes off” the ground.
In a walk/run cycle you want the hips of your character to counterbalance the legs.
Picturing this as a scale can help. As one leg is lifted up this pulls the opposite hip down. Additionally, at the pass position they start to balance/straighten out, then turning the other way on the contact position.
It helps to picture the hip motion creating a figure 8 motion as they move and rotate throughout a walk/run cycle animation.
There should be hip movement in every walk cycle but how much the hip moves can depend greatly on the personality of the character you are animating.
Shifting the centre of gravity in a walk/run is a great way of communicating personality or emotion. Small changes to the animation can have a great affect on the personality of a character, even foot placement or movement has a great affect on the personality of a character.
If a character is angry they tend to have the hips and upper body forward, their centre of gravity is in front of them making them take wider steps.
If a character is happy or prideful their centre of gravity is backwards as they are opening their body a bit more this also causes them to take wider steps.
Manipulating with a characters centre of gravity can give the impression they are drunk or sick.
If you keep the centre of gravity locked down they feel uptight.
For runs you see that figure 8 motion again, with the feet from the side view. This is because the character should be launching their body off the ground with each step. This doesn’t apply to walks as they make contact with the ground more.
Walks tend to happen naturally while runs have more of an intent.
Knowing why a character is running can help convey emotion in their run.
Knowing how and why a character moves can really make an animation.
I originally was planning on doing the walks in 3D to show diversity in my animations however, instead used my 3D animations as a reference for my walk with personality (sassy walk).
I used the IK vs FK notes I make from the Doodley animation legs and animation arms as a reference for my for my 3D animations.
When animating the arm rotations in the 3D walk cycles it is good to use Fk. This is because you can do sweeping motions as FK is rotation based, so curves tend to be a lot easier. When I was animating the legs I used IK. By animating the legs in IK the feet then stick in place. Animating the feet locked down helps give weight to your animation without it nothing feels right. In 2D animation is is called ‘registering’ the feet.
It is good to keep in mind that a larger character will tend to move slower, this is useful to bear in mind when animating a character with personality.
IK is good for positing the end of the chain, this makes if better for a straight motion.
When the arms are following the movement of the shoulder or upper body, then the arm is in the shoulder or upper body’s space. However, if the arm is stuck (IK) then it is in world space.
Video research/references
Image references-
Reflecting-
Feedback notes-
Aodhan-
“Appears to be a pop in her hair near the right shoulder at the end of the loop”
“The green haired lady pauses for too long in her passing pose,…The vanilla walk is nice, I would straighten her leg more in the ip pose to add some more vitality.”
Alec-
I would see if racing the legs/body a little bit more in highest pose of the run might add a bit more oomff to this.”
change foot rotation and change to smaller steps on old personality walk
fix the hair on the vanilla walk cycle
on the vanilla walk make the up and down motion smaller
My Animations
Using the walk cycle reference image and adding in the what I learned in class plus the Doodley notes I created this walk cycle.
I made sure to add drag on the hands to stop the animation from looking stiff, and I added a little bounce in the hair as the character walks I also add more secondary animation on the skirt as the character walks.
With the feedback I got for this animation I made the up and down motion of each step smaller so there is less of a bounce.
For this walk I was attempting to create a regal walk cycle.
I tried to use the regal walk cycle from the 16 walk cycles- different attitudes video as a reference but I struggled to get the personality quite right.
Instead I made her steps smaller and changed the rotation of her foot movements.
Theres not much action with the dress as the character is taking small steps the the secondary action is mainly on the hair and small bow.
I wasn’t happy with how this one turn out so that is why I ended up with two walks with personality. I decide to also include this because I didn’t want to throw away all the work I did on this one.
Looking closely at this, there is too much of a bounce in the hair.
This is my second attempt at a walk with personality. I definitely think this one turned out much better and has a lot of motion throughout the animation with how the hair and hip sways from side to side.
I used the run cycle reference image to create this run cycles .
I made sure to have secondary actions in this with her hair and dress.
With the feedback I went back and fixed the hair at the up poses so it wasn’t as big of a change in volume.
When I came to doing the run with personality I was really struggling to come up with any ideas, in the end I ended up doing the anime trope of being late for school. This trope starts with the character panicking that they woke up late and are now having to take their breakfast on the way to school this creates the iconic image of a character run with a slice of toast in their mouth.
This character probably has the most section action in it with the hair, bow and skirt movements.
With the feedback I went back and fixed the pop in the hair above the right shoulder.
Conclusion-
When it came to doing the animations the information I got from watching the Doodley videos really helped me out in the endgame. Looking back on my older walk cycles I did over the summer and at the start of this term I’ve noticed all of my older walk cycles are rather stiff, basic and void of personality. Now I have a much better under standing of how body mechanics works and how to add Personality to my walk and run cycles.
None of these walks really conveys that these characters have personality.
At first I found that I didn’t like Harmony, and found it hard to draw anything that wasn’t an adventure time inspired art style but now that I have a better understanding of how Toonboom Harmony works I found using it much easier. I can now add better and more details to my animations. However, I still have that Adventure Time inspired art style with these animations and with further practice I hope to animate in my normal style in the future.
I also found when animating a 3D character it is helpful for the model to have IK and FK controls. Both IK and FK have different purposes and just animating in FK can be rather difficult. When it comes to animating the feet as it is much harder to have the feet stick in place thus losing the weight of the movement.
I have done a couple of walk cycle animation over the summer and throughout my time at tech, so I had a rough idea on how to animated one. However, this is the first time I have tried doing run cycles. I think both my run cycle animations turn out well for my first go at them.
I went back and made sure all the animation cycle looped 3 times for each animation.
I wasn’t happy with my old personality walk cycle so I decided to start over. I used an 3D walk cycle I did as a reference for this, I also decided to do this from the front view so I can better show the personality of this walk.
I used the 3D animated walk I made to makes things go quicker as this was my second attempt.
The hair wasn’t looping correctly in the Personality run so I went back in later and fixed it.
