Animated Strat. Assignment 2 – Reflective blog

Animation is the part of the course that I feel I really lack in, I’m not as comfortable with the technical language still and I have have a tough time with certain aspects of it. Although I do love the medium, and hope to progress in the future. I had chosen 3D animation because for roughly a month during this assignment we were heavily into another assignment that was heavily 3D including the usage of Maya, I rally enjoy both styles though and I really liked the 2D animation we did last year. I felt that I was so used to 3D at this point and hadn’t touched 2D in a while I was best to do my animations in Maya, I also enjoy 3D a little better because its a pretty immediate view of how your animation looks while you’re working on it which fuels my “I need to be good at this immediately” toxic trait.. which in hindsight it didn’t fuel it that much but still.. I felt that my blocking out stage was my strongest as I have little issue getting clear forms and applying things like C shapes to the spine for more dramatic posture or understanding how body parts should move. I used a lot of reference ranging from my own, second hand and educational/anatomical reference. I really enjoyed learning about the skeletal and muscle differences between males and females, and how that can influence their movement in a unique way. The aspect of animation that I still genuinely can’t seem to wrap my head around is timing/spacing and I feel I lacked in that area in this assignment, Chris Carter from Berkley College had mentioned before that it’s the most common part that new animators struggle with and takes longer to get comfortable with, which made me feel a bit better but it’s clearly something I need to work on. I certainly struggled with this assignment, the other overlapping assignments took up so much of my time I felt I really ended up lacking in this one and could have done much better.

Run Cycle:

We had originally started learning animation in class by learning how to do a run cycle first, so this was my first cycle that I had worked on and completed.

My first original go at it was a bit rough, and I think I was going in to the animation too quickly, and over complicating the foundation of the animation which in turn makes it look wonky and nothing like the reference. I think I realised then how impactful to your overall animation that blocking can be, solid shapes that clearly read what the intention of the movement is helps not only you to have a clear Idea when doing more in depth adjustments but for a viewer it is essential so they understand the action well. In the end for the run cycle I had gone with a simple but more intense run, I wanted something to work on that focused only on the technical side of animation first to build my understanding. After collecting more reference from youtube and using the trusty animators survival guide, I started fresh in a new save file with the Body Mechanics rig. I much preferred this rig over the Jack rig, It had more options to use but still simple enough that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed and I didn’t like how the Jack’s arms twisted.

First Try:

run_test

First try Blockouts:

At this point I didn’t know exactly what kind of run I wanted to do, and I think that comes off in the animation, block outs even. During the semester I was part of a Berkley College animation class ran by Chris Carter. One of the pieces of advice he mentioned straight from the start was “know what you’re animating”, he went on further to explain that in animation, when the animator is indecisive or unsure of the intention or direction of an animation it can be clearly seen. I’m notoriously an indecisive person, so that sucked to learn but it changed my outlook on referencing and even building a story around a simple animation to have a clear idea in my head. When I think of a run I think of a hobbyists or someone in an action movie, so I looked into how both actions are displayed differently.

Hobbyist Runner:

I did a rough blockout to see the differences in body shapes and movement between the hobbyist runner/jog and the action run. This type of run would have a slower timing, something in the middle of a run and walk I think. The biggest difference I noticed between them is the upper body, The more intense run has a much more noticeable lean while the casual run has a very slight lean. I’ve heard, seen and been told to better understand animation and develop your skill in it you need to understand why the body moves the way it does for the action you want and therefore exaggerate those movements. I did some quick research and learned this: “Leaning forward at the hip, even if only a little bit, can improve your hip’s overall range of motion (ROM). Not only does this allow for better mobility at the joint, but having sufficient hip ROM is also an imperative facet for achieving full hip extension (which is necessary for that all-important triple extension).” from this source.

Action Run:

After the casual runner I then tried out the more action type run, this had a quicker timing as the action was more urgent and obviously faster. I went with this run because I liked the intensity and focus it had, as a whole though I really enjoyed learning smaller details that can effect a run so differently. I found this run to be easy enough, with the timing and the posing, I felt there wasn’t much for me to add since it was more of a flat out run other than adding secondary animation things like head bobs, overlap and torso tilts etc. I did learn through this cycle that the whole body works like a chain reaction, reading the article referenced above it’s really easy to miss how something you wouldn’t think would impact a motion does and how that can be key for the viewer to feel this is a more natural or “believable” motion.

For this animation I tried to use what is known as the “normal” run timing that is shown in animators survivors kit, and use 6s.

Walk Cycle:

For me the walk cycle was much much harder to do than the run, because it usually is slower and a lot more personality can shine through. I wanted to give myself a bit more challenge so I picked a feminine walk. Again for this sort of movement I did some study and research around biomechanics and the difference of motion between males and females. The most significant points I noticed in my references and research in a feminine walk are the hips, how the hands fall and the movement of the feet. Women walk with a sway in their hips due to their pelvis being shorter and wider, for pregnancy and childbirth, this means they need to extend a further tilt to walk. Women’s centre of gravity is based roughly in the area of the pelvis as well, this effects a walk too and the pivot of the back and hips. I also noticed through educational/reference videos that women also have a shorter step when they walk in comparison to men so I also tried to keep this in mind as well in the blockouts as well as timing.

Blockout:

femwalk

I had fun with this walk but it was tough to get timing just right and smootherarcs of the arm and hips. With more time and practice I think I could get this walk down pretty well.

Body Mechanics:

This one worried me the most, I had two ideas of a jump across a gap or picking up something heavy. I went for the jump simply because I liked the blockout poses and it looked like a lot of motion and fun to do. Both ideas have a huge pool of references, so I collected plenty and used all I could. Along with a good amount of video reference I had also watch and read about body mechanics in general. This animation along with the walk took me the longest, so much goes into the movement of each body part, thankfully learning from the other two cycles already gave me an eye for more subtle details. My brothers jumping videos combined with a few other video referenced gave me a nice mix of features that created what I think a exaggeration of poses. I identified a lot of parallel lines as well as C curves in the spine in the videos, here are some that shows that. I referenced the video for body mechanics that was created by Alec as well, I found it very useful when working with recognising key poses. The only issue I felt with my animation, which is reoccurring is my timing and spacing. I really tried to create anticipation but it just wasn’t working out for me no matter the use of the graph editor and the dope sheet.

example of C curves that naturally exist in the push off in a jump, I wanted capture this in my animation to really show the weight and push the body does to makes themselves go further.