CG Artist's Toolkit - Animation and Character Final Submission

Reflective Statement: Animation and character has provided me with the fundamentals of animation researching and putting into practice the 12 principals of animation and studying walk cycles of both people and a four legged creature in addition to a run cycle. I have enjoyed the results of some of my animations despite Flash being a struggle.

Morphing Animation
Coins and Pendulum

12 Principles of Animation

Animator Reviews

4 Different Weighted Ball Bounces

Character balls

Halloween

Anatomy of a walk cycle

Run Cycle

Silly walk

Jump Animation

Throwing a ball

Christmas animation

3 Weight Drawings + Exaggeration Pulling Animation

Flour sack

Dancing woman (Female life drawing)

Robin Run (Male life drawing)

Abstract Animation to Music

Maya Lip Sync Jaw only

Maya Lip Sync Full Mouth Movements

X-Sheet/Dope Sheet (Half Done)

Dancing Woman Animation

Reference

Full Lip Sync

Last week we look at lip sync for puppets - basically making the jaw move up and down, today we looked at enhancing this by making actual mouth shapes sounds like EE/AI/OO/MM etc. Me and Nat couldn't get the eyes to work hence there's no eye movement.

Maya Lip Syncing

This lesson has been about lip syncing by moving the jaw up and down like in the Muppets video below.

Abstract Shapes to Music

Life Drawing Animation #2

Created this animation based on the first 3 poses in life drawing.

Flour Sack Animation

This task was to create a flour sack animation displaying some of the principles of animation:

1. Weight (leap/jump and land, falling off wrecking ball)
2. Arcs (wave)
3. Anticipation (wrecking ball and falling of flour sack nticipated to hit)
4. Emotion (fear at giant slide falling out of nowhere)
5. Appeal
6. Follow through and secondary animation
7. Staging (Wrecking ball and slide)
8. Slow in and slow out (wrecking ball)
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration (fear at giant slide falling out of nowhere)
11. Solid Drawing (Wave and leap/jump)
12. Squash and stretch (landing on ground and the jump/leap).

Exaggeration = Weights and Gravity

Exaggeration, Pulling something heavy.

Jump Sequence

Working with Maddi I created this Jump Cycle.

Frames 1-12

Frames 13 - 23

Throw Sequence

Working with Maddi I made this throw sequence.

Holiday Reading

Over the holidays I've done a bit of reading, I really wish I read The Animator's Survival Kit earlier as it has all of the animation classes explained in a better way that I understand and from it I can see where I've gone wrong in some exercises e.g. my walk cycle and animal walk cycle. This book has also made me realise how important life drawing is and has made me eager to improve over the next term.

In my panda walk cycle I've realised there's no head movement or a weight shift as he walks also he walks slightly too fast. However as my first animal walk cycle I'm pleased with that turn out.

And my walk cycle well, you can see it goes way too fast and is a headache to look at, I have about 20 frames for about 3 steps... I will revisit this task and redo it following the guidance in the book.

It is supposed to be 12 frames = 2 steps. I understand about the different parts of a walk cycle, contact, passing pose etc.  The sequence will be 48 frames (2 seconds) long and the walk at a natural pace, (in the space of 2 seconds I should have 8 steps).

Morphing

The first time I attempted this it was really bad... But I finally finished a decent version!

4 Leg Walk Cycle - Panda

Yes I know pandas aren't found in pine forests but I wanted something Christmasy in it.

Reference

Silly Walk Cycle - Working with Maddi

Teamed up with Maddi to create this silly walk cycle.

Page 1: Frames 1 - 12

Page 2: Frames 13 - 23

What If? Metropolis OGR Part 2

Run Cycle

Go Lil' Guy! Go!

Walk Cycle

First 5 frames

First 5 frames put together to create one step

9 frames together to create 2 steps

He walks... Very... Very fast...

Happy Halloween!

Richard Williams

Richard Williams is a British animator who has won 3 Oscars, 3 British Academy Awards and over 250 other international awards. He worked with Disney and Steven Spielberg to create the hit film 'Who framed Roger Rabbit?' he created the main characters Roger and Jessica Rabbit, Baby Herman and all the new characters.

Roger and Jessica Rabbit

Williams has had more than a 50 year career in animation which includes The Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, What's New Pussycat, the James Bond Casino Royale, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Oscar winning A Christmas Carol. In 2001 Williams released his best selling book 'The Animators Survival Kit' in which you can get a 16-DVD box set of master classes from his 50 years of experience, his teachings are used around the world by different studios such as Disney, Pixar, ILM,Dreamworks/PDI and Warner Bros. His entire knowledge that he teaches go from the basics of traditional animation in the beginning to more modern computer animation and will go down in history for being a helping hand in sharing his knowledge and for helping current animators take the medium in a new direction.


Bibliography

Information found at: 

• http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/biography.html