Our first objective of this assignment was to create a walk cycle, so we practiced this in class in 3D and 2D.
For the 3D session of our tutorial, I found it difficult, especially the section where we had to use the graph editor, which will be a recurrent theme in a few of these blogs. I find that I can follow along with the tutorials and pre-recorded videos pretty well until it comes to stuff like the action editor, graph editor, and dope sheet.
This is what I got done in class whilst following along the videos and using Preston Blair’s guide.
If I were to go back and do this, I would try to not be so intimidated by the graph editor and use other materials online to better my understanding of how and when to use it, because it just looks like scribbles to me otherwise.
I can notice a slight jolt in the animation; it looks a little too snappy when the foot comes into contact with the ground If I were to redo this, I would make it ease onto the ground because it just seems a little too robotic.
2D
I’m a lot more confident in 2D than 3D, so it’s why I’ll be submitting all my assignments in 2D. In this part of class we used Richard Williams guide instead of Preston Blairs and I have done walk cycles previously in my own time; however, I’ve always used an iPad to animate so using a tablet is going to take a bit of adjustment but I’m hoping that after I practice more it’ll come easier to me.
I want to have another go at this before I submit my final one. Aodhan gave me some feedback on the cycle:
- The legs flip part way during the cycle
- The legs don’t look human; they look more like rabbit legs
Before second year started over the summer, I did a practice walk cycle following richard williams guide using both the ‘CONTACT METHOD’ and ‘DOWN POS: METHOD.’
For my final submission, I’m going to redo my practice one over the summer except on ToonBoom and make it much more polished, taking in the feedback I got from my class walk cycle from Aodhan.
I uploaded the improved walk to sync sketch and sent it away for feedback and this is what I got:
- Add secondary animation – hair
- Clean up the form on the arms
- Break the elbows for more fluidity
I also got feedback that I should stick with the contact method instead of mixing the contact method and down method, as doing this created an unclean loop, so I took this on board, and this is the final animation I’ll be submitting.
There’s alot I would like to change about this now in hindsight.
First off, I think a big mistake I made in this animation was trying to use big chunky confident lines instead of sticking to skecthy lines. I switched to sketchy lines in other animations, and I think that works a lot better, at least until I get more confident in using toonboom because with the chunky line weight I used I think it really hindered how well I could draw my character proportions and such.
I think my overlapping action in the hands is good, but the shoulder has some popping, which is annoying, and if I went back and redone this, I’d pay closer attention to those smaller details. I also think I stretched out the leg too much while she’s walking; it sort of looks like she’s doing lunges, so I would go back and make that contact pose not as dramatic.