Walk Cycles: Week 4

Walk Cycles are made of 5 key positions which make up one step. This diagram form Richard William's book 'The Animator's Survival Kit' showing the five key position in an average walk cycle of one step.

The first and last position are the contacted positions where both legs are fully extended with a slight bend in the knee. The next positions the down, knees are both bent and the body is in its lowest position. this and the up position give the walk more weight and a slight bobbing motion.

Ball and Legs Tutorial:

Contact and Passing Positions:

The first stages of animating a walk cycle is to set key poses. The first key poses set are the contact poses on frames 1 and 25 (the poses are the same) and frame 13 (which is the same pose as frames 1 and 25 but inverted). Next are the passing positions which happen half way through each step at frames 7 and 19.

When aniamting this rig I set my prefernces to Stepped instead of linear. This way when playing back the animation only the key frames where shown. The video bellow shows the 5 keyed positions in the image above.

Contact and Passing Positions:

All 5 Key Positions

After adding the contact and passing positions the next poses added where the down and up positions. These positions help add weight and gives the walk a bobbing up and down motion. Also when creating these poses I added rotation to the ball as fell as lifting it to make the ball look like it's shifting it's weight forward with it's legs.

The video bellow shows the animation with the 9 keyed positions shown in the image above again in the Stepped setting. 

Graph Editor:

Once the key frames are established the animation is cleaned up using the graph editor. The graph editor on the left is in the Stepped preferences and the on on the right is in linear.  Here I learnt to flatten or straighten tangents and where to delete unnecessary keyframes to create smooth tangents. I found this part of the tutorial really beneficial as it taught me more efficient ways of using the graph editor and how the tangents an be manipulated.

Ball and Legs finished Walk Cycle:

I found this tutorial really useful in understanding the key poses for the legs in a walk cycle and also drew my attention to the importance to the position of the feet. Using the graph editor was particularly useful in making the feet stick and achieving a smooth banking side to side motion. What I would like to do next with this rig is to play around with the walk to give it different rhythms and personality as well as experiment with the squash and stretch deformer. 

Anticipation: Week 3

Anticipation:

Telling the audience what your about to do/ anticipating the action. in the diagram bellow taken form 'The Animators Survival Kit' shows three images:

1. The first is like an establishing shot; the items which will be involved in the action.
2. The second is the anticipation. the arrow will travel to the right but it can't move from a stationary position. It first moves back telling the audience that it's about to move.
3. The third position is the reaction to the action. The arrow shoots off leaving the bow reacting to it's movement. This is telling the audience that the action has happened.

Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner:

One of the best places to see anticipation are the Loony Tunes with their very rubbery characters. The road runner and the coyote are very good examples as they have very fast and exaggerated actions and without anticipation it is possible the audience might miss the action altogether.

The objects position/shape in the anticipation stages is always the opposite of the action stage. The road runner in the image bellow his body arcs back completely before shooting his head forward to eat the bird feed. This gives his movements more force making it a much more aggressive action then if he had just bent this head down to eat.

Ball and Tail Character moving around environment:

Using the same rig as before I am trying to give the ball and tail character as it moves around an environment (a pyramid of stairs). Character can be created through pauses as much as action. Pauses indicate that the character is thinking and the pose/ body language tells the audience the nature of the though.

The pixar logo is a good example of this as it takes an ordinary inanimate object and gives it a character as it interacts with the letters of the Pixar Logo. The anticipation of the lap before it jumps is particularly important in giving the lamp character and appeal.

• It squashes showing it's intent that it wants to jump and it takes it's time to do so, so the audience can engage with the characters thoughts that it wants to jump.
• It wiggles side to side as it squashes, a bit like a dog wagging it's tail. this gives the lamp childish quality/ personality which the audience finds appealing. 

Story Boarding:

These story boards are a rough sketch of how I want the animation to unfurl and what I want to happen to the character as well as how the action is going to be framed (shot composition). I want to show first the curiosity and then desire to climb the stairs and after a failed attempt the character making it to the top.

This short animation are the first 4 frames of the story board animated. It still needs some work in regard to timing, some pauses longer to stress that the ball is really thinking. I really liked the stretch when the ball re enters shot. I didn't storyboard this in coming up with it as I was animating.  I think it really helps showing the characters thoughts especially as he doesn't have any face expressions to animate.

Overlap tests: Week 3

Overlap/ Follow through:

Overlap is when part of an object continues to move after the rest of the object has stopped and then slows down and comes to a stop also. The speed of the action and how long it will take for this part of the object i.e. hair to come to a stop will depend on the weight and how violent the movement was.

This diagram from 'The Animators Survival Kit' by Richard William shows the two of the stages before the coat comes to rest. The middle stage is the overlap: the man has stopped moving but the coat contiunes past him before it settles. The first stage before that is the drag and no overlap can exist without the drag happening first as it helps give the object weight.

Break Down:

At the mid point between the Drag and Overlap the object mustn't become straight as this makes the animation look inaccurate and looses the feeling of follow through. The correct position for the object is one that incorporates both drag and overlap, Richard Williams calls the break down position.  

Reference video:

This video helped me understand the correct break down position for my object: a ball and tail.  Although our rigs were slightly different both had three joints and it gave me a good indication of how to position the tail with that tail particular structure.  

Ball and Tail with Overlap:

The first test, which I have analysed (bellow) is of a the ball moving in one direction. The extreme stages of the overlap and swinging of the tail were key framed in and the graph editor was then used to create the appropriate spacing. doing this simple break down really helped me to understand the shapes the tail needed to take to give it a sense of weight and memento as it traveled behind the ball.

The next test was having the ball go left, right and then left again. There I experimented with two different weights. This first was heavier particular in the lower tail making the rest of the tail swing a lot. The second was lighter with a lighter tail tip resulting in the main part of the tail not moving/swinging as much when it comes to rest. With this particular weight I also experimented moving the tail in the Z-axis as well as the X. This made the tail look a little heavier because as it overlapped it moved around more before coming to a stop.

Timing and Squash and Stretch Test: Week 2

Timing variations:

There I played around with the timing of the bounce of a hard and bouncy ball to get an idea of how the weight of the bounce is affected. I made the bounces longer or shorter in frames by selecting all the key frames in the time slider and used the side arrows moving the keyframes. I then used the snap tool to place the the key frames on to frames.

For the Hard ball the best test was 44 frames and 37 as they keep the weight of the bounce. Where as the 66 frames bounce looks like the ball is flouting and the ball has no weight.







For the Bouncy ball test I thought that the best was the 101 frames as it didn't flout but still had more bounce that the 73.  These tests where useful to understand the importance of timing and how it can effect the weight of a bounce.

Squash and Stretch using Deformer:

Before adding a squash and stretch to the ball bouncing I referenced this video to understand the bounce of a ball with a material quality that allows a lot of squash and stretch.




I added a deformer to the ball to create a squash and stretch. this was a lot of fun to do and the bounce of the ball was achieved using key frames and not the graph editor. Because of the stretch of the ball at different points in the arch it looked like the ball had the right spacing in the arch.  I also experimented with a jiggle deformer to make the ball look like it was full of fluid.

A Ball Bouncing Across a Room:

the next stage of my experimentation is to get the ball bouncing across a flat plane which means that not only do i need the correct timing and spacing but the shapes of the arches need to be correct too.  i had to use reference material of a bouncy ball where i looked at spacing and the arches to understand the correct movement of this particular type of ball.

Ball bouncing across screen Maya Tests:

For these test I decided to go about it using two different approaches; pose to pose and straigt ahead animation. I used the Ghost affect when animating so I could see the path of the archs reacted by the ball's bounce.

Straight ahead animation:

This I did by moving the ball every frame to the next positing in its arch. the problem with this is that it's very time consuming and if i wanted to change one of the fames I then had the change all the ones following which isn't particle. Also using the graph editor is very difficult due to all the key frames.

Pose to Pose Animation:

With this technique I made key frames at the top and bottom of the arches, mapping out the path of the bounce. Before using the graph editor the ball moves in straight lines creating v shapes. Then using the graph editor I could create the spacing of the arch and change the straight lines into curves.

The first coin has even spacing which is what Maya creates: linear spacing. the coin below has the same timing (key frames) but the spacing is different which in Maya is created by using the graph editor and manipulating the arches and curves between key frames.
(Diagram from 'The Animators Survival Kit' by Richard William)

Also by doing this I could alter the key frames more easily than the straight ahead animation. This experiment has taught me to use the graph editor more effectively and with less key frames.

Image Plane Reference video: 

Here I used an image plane in maya with a reference video of a basket ball bouncing. I also used key frames at the top and bottom of the arches to block out the animation. I then did the same for the balls rotation once I placed a ram labert on the ball. then using the graph editor I edited the bounce of the ball's arch and it's ration. Once having polished that animation I removed the image plane. Also experimented by adding a slight squash and stretch to the ball. Unfortunately I couldn't key frame the rotation of the deformer so as the ball rotates the squash and stretch couldn't follow and squash in the correct place.

Timing and Spacing tests: Week 1

Timing and Spacing:

These two concepts are the first two principles of animation we have covered. Timing refers to the time it takes for an object to travel from A to B or the action between these two points, in the case of the bouncing ball the distance between bounces. The diagram below form 'The Animators Survival Kit' by Richard William shows the principle of timing with a bouncing ball. As the energy is lost form the ball the bounces become more frequent meaning the ball is travelling slower.

Spacing instead is what happens between points A and B this gives the ball the feeling of weight. Uneven spacing can be used to create ease in/out by letting the frames overlap creating the feeling of the ball hanging in the air before it falls to the ground. The diagram below also form 'The Animators Survival Kit' by Richard William shows that as the ball reaches the top of the arc the spacing of the frames become closer and ease in and out of the top of the arc.

Before starting any animation test I found some secondary reference video research and used the first two balls for reference: an exercise ball and a basket ball. The exercise ball has a lot more energy in it's bounce that the basket ball and it bounces for much longer.

Animation tests:

Spline Graph:

When the key frames are made maya makes the spacing between each frame even but as seen above, uneven spacing gives the ball a feeling of weight. To alter the spacing I broke the tangents and freed the tangents of weight. Then I was free to create ease in and outs by plateauing tangents. By raising the tangent above or below the value of the key frame would also create anticipation but as I wanted to only create a simple bounce I apply that technique.

There is also a visible difference between the way the two graphs look for the different bounces. Test 002 has more bounces and the height of the bounce slowly decreases and the timing of the bounces come closer together. Test 001 by contrast has fewer bounces and the height of the bounces quickly deduces in value because it doesn't bounce as high.

Test 01: Hard Ball:

Test 002: Soft Ball

The Dark, Dark Tale: Storyboard

Storyboard:

The idea for this animation is to have one continuos shot traveling through the environments. This is a little difficult to show via storyboard stills so I made a quick animatic to show the movement of the continuos shot. As it stands at the moment the sequence is 1:13. I hope to make this longer but without doing the animation it is difficult to determine just how long it will be.

The music I have added is form Edward Scissorhands soundtrack by Danny Elfman. This is a better example of the music I would like than by pervious test shot.

Storyboard:

The next stage of development will be to complete designs and concept art which in turn may inspire a more detailed storyboard.

The Dark, Dark Tale: Idea Development

One of my favourite short stories was The Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown so I decided to animate this tale. Having just finished my Time Based Narrative which involved a lot of running cycles and frame by frame animation I wanted to explore using the camera to create movement.

After Effects virtual cameras have many settings which can be changed and used to create dynamic shot through what would have been a 2D image. I used this tutorial to get me started on my camera work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ax8s3Ftkw&list=FLHNSkJVo8XO8-WpCtHQtLdg&index=2&feature=plpp_video


This is a 17s test clip of how the animation might look like. There I explored colour and form of the environment and tested how the camera might move around. I also experimented with aperture and focal distance. The music is form Avatar by James Horner. I used this music temporarily to help emphasises the atmosphere but for my final animation I would like to collaborate with a music composure to create a score to fit the spooky atmosphere I wish to convey.

The Dark Forest: