Movement Animation

To begin this assessment, I had to decide what I wanted to animate, I had a few ideas of movements I wanted to do like a figure skating jump and spin, but I decided to do a run, jump and trip. I started by looking up references of people running, jumping and falling. These are all images and gifs I found on the internet. After finding these I looked on YouTube for tutorials on how to animate run cycles, jumping and falling.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ykWLe8mfCc

 

Rough Blocking Out

I started by roughly blocking out my idea with a sphere and two ovals, this helped me to nail down my idea and roughly work out the timing of the movement. I found this step very helpful as I could then reference the Monty rig and mimic the movements made by the rough character. 

I like the look of the movement so far, it looks smooth and the timing worked well, I think it will need adjusted when more frames are added but it looks good so far. 

  

Blocking Out with Monty

Next, I blocked out the movement with the Monty rig, I reference the rig, so I could not break as easily. I followed what I had done for the rough block out very closely as it already captured what I wanted quite well; however, I did change the timing a bit as the run had to be a bit faster. 

I think it looks good so far as the movement move smoothly, need to adjust the run as he doesn’t hit the ground very hard and he looks a little weightless, I will adjust this in the graph editor at a later stage. 

 

Inbetweens

I then started to add inbetweens to the animation and tweak some of the positions as some did not look right. I spread the feet a little as this made him look more natural, I also made his knees move in and out when he jumps. I fixed one of Monty’s legs when he jumped as it looked stiff. I also used the foot roll feature as it made the animation look smoother.  

The movement looks good and the foot roll looks natural and helps Monty look heavier when hitting the ground. 

 

Squash and Stretch

 Next, I added some squash and stretch to Monty, I used it mainly when he crouches to jump and lands. I also added it when he runs as I wanted his body to compress a little when he hits the ground as it would give him more weight. When Monty trips and hits his head off the ground, I made him flatten a little as I wanted the impact to be quite hard. 

 I like the squash and stretch as it adds a lot of weight and energy to Monty. 

 

Polish

To tweak the movement of the animation I adjusted the graph editor for the body and feet to give him more weight when he runs and jumps, this made him look less floaty. 

Lastly, made his brow move up and down when he moves to add more personality to Monty. I also made his eyes clench when he jumps and lands. I also adjusted the run as he dipped down to low, it made it look a little unnatural. 

Overall, I think the movement animation turned out well. The timing looks good and the facial expressions fit. If I was to do this again, I would mess with the graph editor more as I think I was playing it safe as I don’t fully understand how to work it. 

 

 

Emotion Animation

For this task I looked into the emotion of sadness, to start I referenced different gifs of other people’s interpretation of sad walking. I also reference the character Sadness from the movie Inside Out. The main feature of a sad walk seems to be a lowered head, swaying from side to side, dragging their feet and moving slowly. With all this in mind I started to block out my animation. I gathered some gif of the actions I wanted to convey from the internet and then went onto YouTube to look up some more references.

 

 

Rough Blocking Out

To start I roughly blocked out the movement with a sphere and two ovals, it is very basic but it gives me a good idea of what the animation will look like and how fast the movements should be. I also added the character kicking a ball but being disappointed with how little it moved. 

The rough looks good, I think the timing needs adjusted the walk looks a bit funny.  

 

Blocking Out with Monty

I then started to block out the movement using the Monty rig. I mainly focused on the legs and how they moved as I wanted the feet to drag behind him to emphasize his sadness. The toes will curl under the feet in a cartoonish way to make him look heavy and distracted. 

 Movement is looking good and the timing seems right so far. 

  

Inbetweens

For the inbetweens I rotated Monty’s body down so he is looking more at his feet, this was one of the common features seen in sad walking. 

I ran into a problem when working on his feet, I wanted the toes to curl inwards to drag on the ground, however this is not one of his controls. I tried to make it work but it looked wrong so I decided to change his walk cycle a little and just make his feet lay flat on the ground. 

After adjusting the walk, I also made him sway from side to side to add more weight to him while he walks. 

  

Eyes and Eye Brow

Next, I added more personality to Monty’s face by making his eyes constantly half lidded and his brow lowered, this makes him look sad as he sways towards the ball. His eyes widen and brow raises when he kicks the ball as he gets a little excited but then goes back to disappointed and sad as the ball didn’t move very far. 

  

Polish

Lastly, I tweaked the movement in the graph editor, I made the feet fall faster to make each step feel more labored and heavy 

Overall, I think the emotion reads wall and the timing looks good. If I was to do this again, I would try to curl the toes under the foot as I think it would have really added to the look of him dragging himself while walking. 

 

Reflection

Overall, I found this task quite fun, it gave me a chance to explore the movements and emotions of a character. The movement animation, I chose to do a run, jump and trip. I think this was a good idea as I got to explore how the body hits the ground when falling and how a run transitions into a high jump. I think the timing looks good as the run looks fast and flows into the jump well. However, I do think that when he runs, he looks a little floaty like he is not hitting the ground hard enough. Also, when he jumps one of his legs look a little weird, it looks static and stiff.  Overall, I really like how this animation came out. The emotion animation, this task was a little harder to do as the Monty rig has no mouth or arms, these are an easy way to convey emotion, so I had to choose an emotion that could be shown through just the legs and eyes. I chose to make a sad walk. I like how this animation came out, I think it reads well and the timing looks good. However, I do think the walk looks off as the feet take a little too long to touch the ground. I did run into a problem when animation this emotion as I wanted the toes to curl under the feet to make the animation more exaggerated but I did not check if it was possible first so I will pay more attention next time. In conclusion, I am very pleased with the animations I made, both show movement and emotion well and are clear to read. 

 

SyncSketch Links:

  • Movement Animation

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/518268107b9e/

  • Emotion Animation

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/e9c4741dee0b/

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