Walk Cycle:
So for the walk cycle I used a YouTube tutorial from Alessandro Camporota. I used the same technique that I used on the run cycle. Working only on one side and one part of the body first, completing the cycle, and copying and X,Y and X rotations. I did run into a problem however. While working on the right leg, I copy and pasted the entire key frame then change the rotations. But when I done this the animation wouldn’t spline correctly. For example the foots position would go further than the next key frame, then would jump back to the right position once it reached it. To fix this I deleted the entire frame, then added the rotations without copying the frame. I left the walk cycle to last as I thought it would be the easiest and require less time. That was a mistake. I didn’t have much time before the deadline to finish the walk cycle which means it wasn’t properly polished. It feels very ‘jolty’ or stiff and not very natural. Overall I’m kind of disappointed in this one but I think the other two are much better.
Reference:
Final outcome:
Run Cycle:
Second was the run cycle. Again I used a YouTube tutorial from the same creator to help me. I tried to give to run at least a little bit of a different style so it wasn’t a straight copy. So I started with the key poses then added some in-betweens. To give the animation more consistency I would chose one part of the body then work on one side. So I started with the Left leg. Once it was done I would copy and paste the X,Y AND X rotations to the opposite leg and opposite key frames. I done this for the rest of the body as well. I then added a slight rotation to the waist and head to make it a bit more natural. I think there’s a little bit of stiffness in the arms. I also think I could have done a better job looping the animation and you can see a slight jump, although its not too distracting. Overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Reference:
Final outcome:
Body Mechanics:
So for body mechanics I instantly knew what I wanted to use as a reference. I love Star Wars and I’m a huge fan of Kylo Ren, so I wanted to use the fight between kylo and Rey against the praetorian guards. I think it shows a good range of motion and weight while not being overly complicated. I learnt the Choreography and tried to keep the timing as close as I could. After a couple takes I decided on this one. The timing is a little off but is close enough. I started the animation by picking out the key poses and replicating them with the rig. I thought it would be best to use the azri rig as it came with a sword which I could use in place of a lightsaber, to give the animation a bit more context. Once I had all the key poses I started to add in-betweens. I soon realised that I was struggling to get the timing right, which made the animation either too fast or too ‘floaty’; without any weight. To help with this I opened the reference in premiere pro and switch the time scale to frames. This allowed me to see exactly where certain frames should be. The clip starts in slow motion, so to try and fill those frames to fit with the timing I added the sword being lifted. After my first pass I noticed there were a few things that needed to be changed to stay true to the reference. For example the movement of the legs, How the sword interacts and the ducking pose. After a few changes and a couple more passes I was happy with the result. I still think it could be better and for now I’m happy with it, and I definitely had the most fun with body mechanics.
Reference:
First pass: