Monday 29 November 2010

An Extra Bit of Animation

In my last blog I said I would try and do an extra bit of animation in my free time so I give you a walk cycle I did on Maya. I just wanted to experiment with the secondary animation really. Anyway take a peak.


I managed to incorporate the bounce I didn't manage to achive with the monkey but it's not perfect. Any feedback would be great.

Anyway next I'll have to animate my own walk next. I'm really looking forward to it but I know I'm going to have to pay attention to every little detail.

...I really want to do more to my own project too.
...this animation is getting really adictive...

Sunday 28 November 2010

Oh it's so awful I don't want to write about it!

So the walk cycles continue.

Once my hand drawn walk cycle was finished I then had to animate a CGI monkey walking. The idea was to not make it walk like a monkey but to simply create a neutral walk but I still had to consider elements like the tail and the extra long arms. And it is terrible. I really didn't want to put this up on the Internet, for all to see, but if I want to pass my degree I have to.

Front view


Back view

Yes ok the hips and shoulders twist in opposition but there is no believable sense of weight. Another problem; the feet slide forward a little when they pivot. Another would be that that although there is movement in the wrists and elbows it is so subtle that the arms seem rigid and lifeless. Over all it is a very static performance. The only thing I think looks any good would be the secondary animation in the tail and I feel that to looks a little rigid too.
Originally I had planed to keep his arms tucked in at his sides and make them bounce a little with his head as he padded along to make them look lose and relaxed. This changed because the moment I animated his chest to rotate in the opposite direction of his hips the bounce would have clashed with the left and right swing of his shoulders.
Next time I think if I was to lessen the swing of the hips I could make the rotation of his chest much more subtle and then I could make the arms and head bounce much more.

If I get some spare time (I've already begun on my own project) I will give it a go and upload it if it's successful.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Do the Walk!

It's going to be a short one again.

My latest hand drawn animation assignment was to do a neutral walk cycle so here it is.



I'm rather happy with this one. I went straight through with no inbetween business. I tend to find setting frames and then doing inbetweens rather disjointed while if I go straight through I can some how feel the movement of the animation itself within my own body. It always seems more fluent and natural too.

Anyway that all for today.

Thursday 4 November 2010

Bird Poop!

Yes that is my title. Bird poop.

Why? My next assignment shall demonstrate.


This time I had to animate a take so I did a double take. Basicly cubie spots a bird over head doing the inevitable then after a moment realises he should probably react so just scoots out the way. I'm reletively happy with the way this one went. I supose the only critisisum I could give would be that I need to leave a longer pause at the end as it just finishes rather abruptly, bairly giving you time to alow the action to sink in.

My last hand drawn animation was simlar to the double take as it involved my Cubie dude crouching fearfully in responce to a loud sound, timidly glancing over his sholder for a moment before leaping into the air with shock. The sphisical reaction was much more "cartoony" in nature and as he only made the single glance it is only a take. Take a lookie see.



So that's it for now.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Real to the Sureal

Ok so I've shown a lot of my animation work but very little of my drawings so I present you with last week's drawing asignment. Real to the Sureal. The task was to make obsevational drawings but give them a sureal twist. Take a peak.

Fear my suitcase! 

Look! It's a "shell phone!"
...You know like "cell phone"...
Ok that was a terible gag.


Maths is dangerous.

Due to my bad photography the image became slightly warped. "Curse you!"

 Anyway those are some of my drawings from last week. This week is draw what ever you want week. And I am so happy about it! I'll upload some of those drawings in my next blog. Oh and feed back on this stuff would be soooooo greatly appreciated.

So untill next time that's all folks.