This week we were introduced to a new type of rig, the Inverse Kinetic, or IK rig as well as how to use the grease pencil tool.

The grease pencil tool allows you to draw out the movement you want your 3D animation to follow. This helps with the block out of your animation. For this exercise I used the ultimate walker rig which had already been provided. The grease pencil tool was really helpful here as I was able to mark out what position I wanted the rig to be in for the jump. Once happy with the placement of the grease pencil markings, I created a single sphere to the side of the rig which I could use to help get more of a 3D sense of placement. I made keyframes of what position I wanted the body of the character to be in at each keyframe.

After this I moved onto the blocking pass. This involved looking closely at the jumping references and making keyframes of the big movements first. One thing which I struggled with at first was trying to get a natural pose for the character when it was bent down, getting ready to jump. I originally had the body bent back too far and so if it happened in real life, the character would fall over backwards. After some work and a couple of tries, I managed to find the correct center of gravity for the model. I tried to capture some leaning into the pose to make it look more natural. For the initial blockout of the rig I used the sphere which I had already keyframed to help me with getting the timing right. Getting some of the details such as the points of the feet when the character jumps came next as these details really bring the animation to life and you want them to be accurate. After I was happy with this, I went back to do the in betweens. This really helped to fill in the gaps which made the animation look strange. When I was happy with this I went to add a few more details, such as having the feet lift to different heights and at slightly different times. I had a bit of difficulty with this as when I tried to do the keyframes for the feet they moved in a strange way. It took me quite a while to figure out where the issue was, but eventually I was able to fix the keyframes and get it to a natural movement. I also initially had some issues with the knees, possibly as I was not yet used to working with inverse kinetic leg rigs. After trying the exercise a few times and using different positions I was able to get it fixed and to move the way I wanted it to.

Once I was happy with how the rig and animation looked at this point, I moved onto the 2nd pass. This pass really helped me to improve the movements of the character and make the jump feel more natural. I was able to fix the details such as the position and points of the feet both in the air and when it landed back on the ground. This really helped ,e to bring the animation to life and incorporate more of the principles of animation. I added some more anticipation into the character to build the jump up a bit more. I also added in a little bit more time at the top of the jump to give the movement a bit more influence.

The polish pass was done to ensure that I was happy with the final animation, as well as the timing of everything. This was my first introduction to the dope sheet and how you can use it to edit your keyframes and in the beginning I found it very difficult. I couldn’t quite work out how to move the frames to the correct place. I was able to get the hang of it better after requesting some extra help from the lecturers. I was happy with how the rig ended up looking, but I do think it could be improved further with practice.