Body Mechanic References
For the body action, I really wanted to animate a fight move or flips. Naturally, I researched references on youtube for flips, fights, and movie stunts. This very useful video of a huge number of marvel stunt recreations popped up.
I went through the whole video and picked several that stood out to me and that fit what I was looking for.
These are the time frames of considered body mechanics.
/ 2:21 / 3:46 / 12:05 / 14:00 / 18:17 /
I’ve always associated the Bayonetta games with crazy combat. So I looked up some fight scenes from the second game for references. I very much enjoy how they counter and bounce from each other’s attacks. After some thinking, I thought it would be too ambitious to recreate a Bayonetta fight scene as it is fast-paced, with crazy poses and several characters fighting and reacting to each other.
I looked up acrobats for different flip references and though they’re great they’re not my favorite. So I decided to go with one of the marvel stuntwork. I like that it’s a more action-type reference performed by a human, helping me create more realistic movements.
When it came to animating the flips, I went with a more closer to straight-ahead method of blocking out the motion. It felt more natural to me and I could get many of the poses from the reference so it would give a good idea of the animation already, and the rest to do is tweaking. I eased her in slowly when she was going down on her hands and then that’s contrasted with a quick flip after a tiny bit of anticipation. When the man in the reference lands the first time, I noticed that he does not stop and instantly flips backwards so there was no need for large amounts of bending of the knee before she propels.
The Azri rig was a litter janky so I went ahead with fixing up the positioning of the whole body and the rest of the limbs with the dope sheet. Moving about each keyframe until I was satisfied.
When I was happy enough with the posing, I realized that the movement is slower compared to the reference videos so I whipped out the time editor and sped everything up with the time scale option, keeping other parts slower for a sense of weight, and baked it into the scene.
The arms and head looked quite stiff so I looked back on my reference and tweaked them to feel more natural, and I felt like the arches of the flips were off so I fixed those too.
Reflecting on error
One mistake that I would change if I did this animation again is to pay attention to the whole model when working on it. I was mostly working on the right and front views and missed the part of the arm warping. Now that I sped up the animation all the keyframes are filled in and trying to change it did more damage than leaving it.
Final Playblasts
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Overall I think this animation turned out quite well. It was important that each flip flowed into the other so it would look natural. And I believe I achieved that. I wasn’t too fussed about the movement of the hair or clothes in this one as I was trying to focus on getting her movements right.
Walk cycle References
For the walk cycle, I had this idea of a menacing slow walk towards something. I knew exactly where to look for references for this exact thing. Jinsoyun, in the MMORPG Blade and Soul, has this powerful glide when she walks towards her enemies and I just love how badass it looks.
Another similar walk is the Raiden Shogun, from Genshin Impact, when approaching another character she’s about to decimate. Just like Jinsoyun, it is graceful yet powerful and perfectly terrifying.
For extra ideas, I looked at the old reliable 100 different ways to walk video but I liked the former idea more.
I got the Azri rig model from https://www.gameanim.com/product/azri-rig/. I very much thought she would be perfect for this animation and more options of animation, like the facial rig.
I blocked out the poses while looking at my reference of Raiden Shogun, mainly focusing on the feet right now.
I noticed that the hips move side to side in my references so I rotated the hip rig to mimic just that.
My tutor suggested that I shouldn’t extend her legs too far as it makes the character look awkward. Not like the slow walk, I’m going for. I was also advised not to sway her top half as much as she looks like she’ll get off balance. I need her to look confident and walk with a purpose.
After the advice, I changed how her legs were positioned and I think it looks way better and more natural than before. I gave her arms a slight sway and a head bob when she steps down as well to avoid a robotic look. One of the hands is barely swaying as it is going to hold a sword and the other has a more free wrist movement following the movement of the hand in a short delay for a graceful sway.
For some feeling of weight, I made her knees bend a little when she steps and then eased into her most stretched, top pose.
I had a little hiccup with trying to get the sword to parent to her hand and it would move off the body. But later I got the positioning fixed and the sword followed her hand animation movements without me needing to keyframe the sword into her hand, saving me lots of time.
When giving her the grip, I animated the fingers to slightly open and close to show that she’s grasping it, readying for the incoming battle. And for the feet, I noticed that it sways a tiny bit before it meets the ground, so I did just that. I moved about the knee rig so the legs wouldn’t clip through each other when crossing.
For the facial animation, I gave her a cold and graceful stare. Looking down on her target. I kept it subtle, little eye movements to the side but still focused on what’s in front of her. Her eyebrows very slightly furrow and her lips open to expose her teeth.
Final Playblast
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back
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Expression
I feel like I accomplished the exact movement I was going for and am very happy about this. Her movement is smooth, powerful, slow, and loops perfectly. Surprisingly, a slower walk cycle proved to be a challenge to get right, as it was easy to make it look unnatural. I feel like a faster speed sometimes hides mistakes in animation.
Run Cycle
I used a similar reference of this image for the posing in the blockout stage. It was a great starter stage for this run cycle.
The character was swaying a lot and the legs crossed, which looked really goofy and I had to change that immediately.
After I fixed up the posing and the character had the right movements I noticed that since it’s so slow I feel like she is very heavy or on the moon. So I went into the time editor and sped her up, baking it into the scene.
I tweaked some movements of the wrists and other limbs to make it look more natural in the dope sheet. Instead of stiff outstretched hands, I curled them up into almost fists. I feel like that looks more visually pleasing and that she’s running for her life.
Final Playblast
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front
I like how it turned out, her run flows well in the loop.
Conclusion
I found it very exciting to challenge myself to different animations I’ve not done before. On a new bi-ped rig as well. So many different moving parts you have to balance out to get one cohesive and natural movement. I tried different animation methods, like blockout and straight-ahead, and thought that each fits different circumstances. I found problem-solving fun, if different parts did not behave like they should, and fixing them would feel rewarding as well as seeing the final animations. This assignment has made me motivated to try more different movements during my study time and maybe use them on an animated short.