Animation strategies Portfolio

Basic Walk cycle

Run cycle

Personality walk cycle

Run and Jump

Animation Strategies Reflection

Tclass exercises were useful, although I didn’t use them as submissions, I referenced and used the skills I learnt from them. I learnt a lot from individual work too like ‘gun walk cycle’  which taught me how fast I was making my aniamtions, I kept this in mind for my submissions.

I enjoyed the creative freedom to choose what to animate. I chose characters I liked and movements/angles that looked fun and challenging. While this helped me push myself, I didn’t manage my time or complexity, and so overwhelmed myself with unrealistic standards.

Toon boom

I initially found Toon Boom annoying however, as I kept using it, I learned small tricks that made my work go a lot quicker. Understanding its tools and learning about the program really helped in making my animations, as I was already pressed for time; these tools were essential for me to finish on time.

Thought on the Animations

Basic walk-

• The most polished of the 4
• Successfully implemented multiple secondary actions
• Overall very happy with the final result

Personality walk-

• Technically challenging
• I think it’s one of my most successful 3D animations
• The secondary actions and facial expression added a lot of character
• Very happy with the final result

Run-

• needed to do more research to avoid wasting time
• I wanted to add more secondary actions but I liked the hair a lot
• The actual run I think is quite good
• The volume on the upper body was very good

Jump-

• The perspective was very challenging, the most difficult of the 4
• I only added one secondary action (Hammer) which I’m disappointed about
• I’m happy with the actual jump and that I was able to meet the challenge
• Definitely ran out of time and should have organised myself better

Final thoughts

I can see where I could’ve improved—mainly the jump, which is lacking in comparison to the others, and the run having too few secondary actions—I’m still proud of the work I’ve accomplished, especially in 3D. While the basic walk cycle is my personal favourite, I feel that the process of choosing the right type of walk for 3D, capturing a really exaggerated walk without breaking the rig, and managing to reduce the popping was challenging and I managed to overcome every aspect.

I regret not doing something more fun with the run. Although I was able to animate a different hair texture and felt that the volume in the upper body was good, I believe I could’ve tried other skills.

I made a mistake by not doing more research into references, this was the main factor that hindered me throughout the module. I’m happy with most of my choices despite constantly doubting whether I was doing enough or if I was doing too much, I think my four animations showcase different skills I’ve developed in this course and demonstrate my ability to take on various challenges and deliver solid work.

Animation Strategies Run

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I enjoyed challenging myself with the volume run for 2D, but became slightly obsessed with the idea of perspective and volume for my submission.

I went with 2D, even though I liked my 3D attempt as I was running out of time and naively thought I could create a better 2D run in less time. Possibly a mistake as I already had a very good start on the run and could’ve easily reused it to create an interesting run with some personality but because I wasn’t comfortable with 3D animation, I opted for 2D instead.

I did four attempts before just sticking to a side view run. The issue was my obsession with a perspective run, but I’m not good at perspective, and couldn’t find good references so everything looked forced and awkward.

I did curly hair since my other animations had straight hair. I wanted to try animating a bouncy movement instead of flowy. I looked at character designs for mechanics and boxers to try to create a small narrative with the character to add a bit more intrigue and visual appeal, but I struggled with incorporating secondary actions that I hadn’t attempted before.

It looks okay. I wasn’t sure what additional secondary action to add, I changed the trousers to overalls, which I liked, but I still feel like it’s missing something.

I think that the upper body is better than the lower body. I really like the volume, which was my goal with all the previous attempts. Although this one isn’t as exaggerated, I do think I was overall successful.

The feet lost their form at some points, I did try to keep the legs consistent by copy-pasting them and referencing the previous frames but I should’ve done a final pass to ensure the shape didn’t change over time. I noticed the hairline moves in one frame, I fixed it in the portfolio one.

Animation strategies- Basic Walk

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I attempted a walk cycle in 2D and 3D over summer.

I really like my 3D walk cycle, I think I did a good job of making the movements smooth and adding drag to the hands. On the other hand, the 2D walk cycle was more challenging. Finding references for the skirt and the hair was quite difficult. I relied on an animation of a horse’s tail (https://youtu.be/DMWDYN5i694 ), which conveyed the general idea, but didn’t match the speed and force of the rest of the body.

The skirt was incredibly difficult. I didn’t fully understand the timing or movement of the skirt.

I tried a more cartoony walk cycle, but since I’m not used to the no-screen tablets, it was impossible to keep the proportions consistent.

The knees didn’t follow a proper arc, which looked terrible. I like that I managed to recreate a Dr.Seuss like movement after fixing up the limbs however I don’t personally like making cartoony art and tend to lean more towards semi-realism which allows for exaggerated features and movement while still keeping a familiar, realistic aesthetic.

I attempted a realistic walk cycle to challenge myself, adding a bit of personality and an object. Having a reference made animating this much easier. I liked that it was at an angle, I tried this angel in a future attempt. Although I like the proportions more, I feel I stuck too closely to the reference, which limited my creativity and made the movement feel a bit forced and mechanical in some parts.

Looking back, I would try to exaggerate some of the poses by breaking the arm. I would also play with the speed a bit, as it feels too fast. I noticed this becoming a bit of a habit, so I kept it in mind when working on my actual submissions. I don’t naturally have an eye for tempo, and it seems I tend to make the animations too fast, which stands out, especially in walk cycles.

I decided to do a semi-realistic walk, as I didn’t love the cartoony walk, but a fully realistic walk cycle felt restrictive. I chose a character I like -Frieren- which made me really motivated and resulted in my favourite of the four submissions.

I used the Richard Williams walk cycle as a guide to the key poses, but I chose to create a less cartoony movement, so I didn’t exaggerate the down pose as much, and the movement of the arms isn’t as pronounced. From my past attempts, I had a good understanding of the challenges ahead, particularly that clothing was an area I needed to focus on as it previously took really long. When spacing out the keyframes, I added more space than usual to avoid making it too fast, like my previous attempts.

Having a good reference for the character made drawing the clothes pretty easy. Though animated clothes over the body, I cleaned up the movement underneath to fully understand where the body stopped, allowing me to calculate how much and long the secondary actions would drag behind.

The main challenge, as anticipated, was the skirt. Finding suitable references was nearly impossible; the only one  was of a preppy anime girl bouncing while walking on the spot. It wasn’t until I finished that I realised that due to the bounce it didn’t match the tempo or movement of my animation, resulting in an awkward flick. Fixing this was difficult, as I still couldn’t find a proper reference, I used the same poses but lessened the movements.

I like my end result. After speeding it up, I was told I didn’t need any in-betweens, though I added some for the earring. The earring was the first secondary action I created, and I made everything else follow the same speed and key poses as it to keep all the secondary actions consistent. I was told the hair was getting lost in the cape, so I adjusted the cape and movement to avoid some tangents.

I tried to fix the skirt’s movement by delaying the frames, I’m not sure if it made a difference, given more time I would look into animating fabric as this was definitely the most challenging part of this animation.