Final Project (Stairs walking up and jumping)

This is the next part of the project, the climbing of stairs, then jumping off it. This was the part which I enjoyed most about the project. I used the first four steps from the ordinary walk cycle file but made changes to it. For example, I moved the spine a little to the back as I wanted the character to appear proud and tall until he reaches the top of the stairs. Then, the character jumps and tries to flap his wings to prevent him from falling but ends up landing safely. To acknowledge the fact that he lands safely, he waves his hands towards the crowd in a cute manner. Honestly, I believe that I have achieved what I wanted to see in this part of the animation.
Below are the three views of the animation. Enjoy!

FRONT VIEW



PERSPECTIVE VIEW



SIDE VIEW

Final Project (Walk cycle)

This is the final project part 1, the normal walk cycle. Basically, for this part of the project, I moved on with the project by separating my job of the walk cycle by concentrating on the different parts of the body at one at a time. Below are the different views of this project. The steps I followed for the walk cycle are as listed.

1) Legs
2) Hips
3) Spine
4) Hands
5) Head

1) As for the legs, I spent about three lessons just trying to perfect the movement of the legs. I also made use of the graph editor to make the animation much smoother.

2) The basic concept I used for the hips was to move the hips in accordance to the movement of the legs. This was not as challenging as the legs.

3) I wanted to achieve a normal walk of the joe rig so few changes were made to the spine.

4) The hands were one of the hardest parts of the animation as the movement of the hands have to be synchronized in opposite manner of the legs. Besides, I had to make three keyframes for each hand movement; one moving to the back/front, one in the middle, then one moving to the front/back. This way, the animation of the hand becomes more realistic.

5) My head animation was pretty much fulfilling the requirement of realism so I placed keyframes when there is pressure on the legs, when stepping hard on the ground, where the head will look down.

BACK VIEW



FRONT VIEW



SIDE VIEW

Character design (Head design)

This are my designs for the character design starting with the head.

Front

Beginning sketches of the head, the usual style of using proportions.

This is after the main features are sketched out with guidelines.

This was taken right after the minor details of the eyes, nose and ears were completed.

This was taken right after the hair was completed and some shading was done. However, some erasing and shading still remains.

And finally my character's head is done. As you can see, my character has earrings on as it is part of his badass character.

Side

This is the side view of my character. My side view drawing isn't very good as I am not accustomed to it. But the basic features are still the same as that of the frontal view.

The whole body design as well as the characterisation of my character will be uploaded soon.

Week 4 Weight shift (Big dog)

This is the animation video of the big dog exercise.

This exercise was somewhat a follow up of the weight shift exercise on the Joe rig. However, this one was slightly harder as there were four legs to coordinate the movement with. Besides, there was weight strain on the legs and body itself since the scenario is whereby the dog is kicked away and it has to lose its balance. This means that the animation has to include the factor of tension in it. I think that I have done an ok job but could have been better at making the animation smoother.

Week 4 Weight shift (Joe Rig)

This is the video of weight shift done using the Joe rig.

This exercise was more to emphasizing on the details of animation like weight applied on a character's legs. In this case, the weight has to be seen as being transferred from one leg to another while the hip moves in the same direction.

Week 4 Rigging

This is the final rigged model in different views:

Front:

Front view, showing joints. IK handles:

Side view:

Top view:

Below are the three poses I did using this rigged model:

Pose 1:

This pose shows the model stepping onto a red box. My aim of this pose is to show that the rigging was successful for the leg areas as there is a smooth pose as seen in the legs. There is coordination between the hip movements and the leg movements.

Pose 2:

This pose shows the model doing a stance on both legs with the hands tilted towards her body in an inwards manner. This way, it can be seen that there is no major screw up in the joints or else the pose would have looked awkward. However, I feel that the hip has a minor problem which I can't seem to solve.

Pose 3:

This pose portrays the model lifting her hands to the sky and looking up. From this angle of the pose, it can be seen that the model's spine has been tilted back a little to show that the function works. The control for the neck area till the head has also been tilted to show it works. Lastly, the toe area has been rotated to give a feel that she is on her toes, which is a natural feeling if you are reaching up to the sky.

Reflection

Among all the exercises from previous weeks, this has to be the most tedious, probably the hardest to achieve. Firstly, I took a long time off this exercise on trying to get the XYZ axis perfect for all the joints. I learnt alot from this exercise such as the binding of the joints as a skeleton to the model, handlers, attributes of the model and various controls. However, I encountered minor problems through the way but managed to solve them in time.