Animation Strategies

Third week

Run Cycle

2D animation

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to depict the 2D run as well as the 3D one because I didn’t have enough time. The shapes didn’t work out for me; I focused more on the 3D assignment rather than 2D. I used Toon Boom Harmony, which, like the previous time, was difficult to learn—possibly because Toon Boom Harmony differs slightly from Krita both because it uses vector graphics and because I hadn’t worked with 2D animation on such a large scale. However, I understood the basics of the movement, and here too I used the main pose chart for the run cycle offered by The Animator’s Survival Kit.

Animation in Toon Boom Harmony running cycle.

Running animation in Harmony with out reference image in background, cat heads was note for walking cycle in 2D animation, how head moves

3D animation

For the run cycle, I used 20 frames, as in Rachel’s video.

The run cycle wasn’t as difficult. This time I followed Rachel’s example a bit, although I used more examples of running people that I found online. I wanted my character to run fast, so I looked for examples where the running isn’t in a sporty style. However, it was difficult to find at first, though I eventually did. Mostly, the hands are placed in fists, but I wanted to add a bit of personality to my character, so the palms and fingers are sometimes open. I looked at Rachel’s example for how to initially set up the movement and frame timing, but then I followed the examples I found more closely, along with Preston Blair’s example with the main poses. I improvised a bit with the hair movement. Initially, the hair animation was too exaggerated, and not just the hair—the hip and body movement and rotation were also slightly overdone. After Alec’s comments, I toned down the activity with the hair a bit and looked for references for hair animation. I also reduced the exaggerated rotation with the body because it looked like Rain was leaning too far. In my opinion, I managed to depict the run well.

Reference research

I encountered the fact that when searching for examples, the run differs slightly depending on speed. I wanted my character to be running away from something or escaping so the movement would be more natural and could be used in a scene. I used several references both for studying hair movement—how hair moves when a woman runs. I found a good example where the run changes with running speed, how the stride length changes, and how the body and torso rotate slightly as the running speed increases.

reference for hair motion and running (“Run reference”, by Animation references)

Reference for hair motion (“Woman Running  –Animation reference”, by Animation References)

Running speed reference YouTube short (“What Different Paces Look Like”, by Ollie R-K)

Running with motion

After fixing the hair, I copied the animation and placed it into a new action animation to start creating the jump and run animation. Before that, I copied the run and applied cyclic animation with repeat with offset on the X location to follow the cyclical run forward. Previously, I couldn’t have imagined that this process could be automated. Initially, I tried to calculate the step distance manually, copying the animation multiple times, but this was a much better way to solve it than doing it manually.

 

Fourth and fifth week

Run and jump Animation.

2D animation

The 2D jump animation turned out well for me. However, Aidan advised me to focus on 3D animation and complete 2D animation only as a lecture assignment. Nevertheless, I see progress—this time the animation was easier to understand in terms of both movement and form, but I know I still have a long way to go before I can animate in 2D. I also used Toon Boom Harmony this time.

2D jumping animation in Harmony.

3D animation

During the lecture, we had to watch and animate the main jump poses using constant interpolation to understand the most important poses. I used several examples and found one where the jump is quite powerful. I placed the main details, but I didn’t really enjoy animating in constant mode—maybe because you have to manually add more movement, which can create overly choppy animation. However, the main point was the experience, even though I prefer animating with curve interpolation. I hadn’t used the graph editor that much before, so this was a new experience in how to change curves. After adding both the main movements and details, I switched to the curve editor. I had to fix the arm rotation, but the main details looked good. However, after Alec’s notes, I had to add more movement and more details when converting the animation from constant interpolation to curves, so that Blender’s software would calculate it more correctly. For the jump, I used a good example I found on YouTube where the jump has larger movement. I used it more to add small details and include greater rotational motion in the arms, and to understand how to transition from a standing pose to the jump’s starting pose.

Jump animation using constant.

Jump in curve interpolation.

Reference video for jump animation (“Jumping reference”, Jose Legaspi.)

Running and jumping over the fence took the most time, considering that I had to combine two separate animations. Using Rachel’s attached tutorial as well as various samples taken from the internet, I realized that the given sports equipment wouldn’t work for me, so I made a simple metal fence and added a metal texture. Using compositing, I also added a camera with a rig system and added light objects, as well as inserted a standard PBR material for the asphalt ground, which gives texture to the ground. I animated the camera slightly so it moves along with the Rain character. I positioned the light objects so it would look like it’s happening at night. However, to better read the movement, I also made a render without the moving camera.

My idea was that my character would be running away from something, for example an angry dog or something else, so I chose an unusual object for Rain to jump over. Therefore, I chose warm lighting and a slightly bluish tone for the atmosphere, and created a metal chain-link fence.

Animation before the change

In the last lecture, Rachel advised me to change the shape and angle so that when jumping, Rain creates the correct geometry and so her body moves with the jump, leaning over slightly. After that, the animation became much more readable and natural.

Animation after change in body geometry rotation

I rendered the finished animation in EEVEE, and it turned out surprisingly well.

Reference research

For the actual jump movement, I used an example of how to jump from a video I found online. I thought this video was a perfect example of how the arms and legs move, so I used it, although I changed the arm direction slightly, taking into account that Rain has a lig

hter form and the angle when Rain’s body bends. In my opinion, I managed to create the movement quite well, although combining the two animations together wasn’t simple. Perhaps next time I’ll try using the NLA track editor to combine two animations together.

Jumping over the fence reference study, using the synksketch to sketch body mechanics and rotation. (video taken of reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/l1rx13/different_ways_of_hoping_over_a_fence/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button )

Problem using action editor.

A problem I couldn’t really solve was that sometimes movements were copied over to another action, which was quite annoying, and in the end I partially solved it by pushing down to the NLA tracks editor, although there’s probably another solution to this problem. Therefore, all animations in the final files are located in NLA tracks.

I finally found a solution: in the other animations, I need to insert keyframes for FK in the transition movement when the arm changes from IK to FK.

Conclusions

The main conclusion for animations is that for each animation I used a different frame count: 20 for running to make it easier to calculate; 32 frames for the first walk, which was a bit inconvenient to animate; and about 40 frames for the walk with personality because it has a larger step and slower speed of movement. I concluded that with each 2D animation attempt, I got better at shape consistency and I could draw one frame faster. I understood how to better place timing and learned a bit about the graph editor, but I’m still not that familiar with animation with curves, though the animation turned out better. I’ll probably need to practice more with the graph editor. I had worked with animation mixing before but not on such a large scale, so this was a good attempt. Overall, I believe I started to better understand timing and rotation during animation, as well as body movement, especially arm movement. I think my animations turned out reasonably okay, but I definitely need to learn more about studying references.