[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2008/08/180turn_251_r40.mov 640 480]

So, after getting my critique about my animation, I’m starting to see the glaringly obvious blunder of this revision. He’s too shifty.

When he’s turning around, every pose is extreme, and he lost a lot of contrast in motion with the steady rhythm of the shifting weight. I need to tighten that up.

Also, the hop at the end shouldn’t settle straight into that last pose. If anything, he’s hop straight back, follow through the arc of motion into that last pose. As in, he needs to hop back and land in that direction before he can switch into the lean on the other side.

And then we’re good to go. I’ll probably spend Saturday night fixing it.

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2008/07/180turn_242_r40.mov 640 480]

. . .

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2008/07/180turn_241_r40.mov 640 480]

Bullet Points:

• As he picks up his feet, his feet should be moving more in front of him and not underneath him.
• fr 80 to 90, smooth out arc to more of a U. More of a slower up, too. Right now it moves too fast.
• fr97 knee moves upward when leg is straight – fix plz
• fr110 foot needs to snap out there before the weight settle. Right now, it slows into right above the ground.
• fr190 instead of looking up, he stays looking at the poo
• fr50 work spacing to feel less like his foot is stuck
• Make him not step through the poo. Storywise, he needs to make more effort to avoid it. Feet further out on each step and arcs high enough to avoid it.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. It worked for me

The keyframes go from this: To this:

And after much, Much, MUCH wrangling of the spaghetti in that second picture, it’s resolved into this:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads/2008/07/turn_blocking_235.mov 480 360]

. . .

Further refining the blocking pass with more sensible keyframes and breakdowns before I spline it.

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/turn_blocking_234.mov 480 360]

. . .

Taking in account what I learned from Michelle Meeker, I went back to the drawing board (blocking). I put in way more keys than before. A helluva lot more breakdowns to hold those long poses. It’s not as easy as it seems, because in the world of the balancing act, there are no “real holds” – only living holds that need drift in them. For example, when Ballie gets up on one foot, he’s not entirely in balance. He’s swinging his weight from up on the foot back to the other. He just does it slowly so that it looks like a balancing act. Either way, here’s the blocking-plus pass:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/turn_blocking_005.mov 480 360]

There are already things wrong with it that I can tell. There’s no anticipation to the movements. At least not enough.

. . .

The second playblast of this assignment. I’m taking it out of blocking after addressing all of Steve’s comments (which I will post here when I’m not falling asleep). Spent 3 hours just on the first 80 frames. Whew. So yeah, this is only the first part.

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/turn_blocking_003.mov 480 360]

The first playblast of the first blocking pass for the [post="145" text="Better 180º Turn"].

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/turn_blocking_002.mov 480 360]

As you can see, I had to exaggerate every pose, every keyframe, every breakdown to keep a solid, appealing animation throughout. All animation is a characature of real life. There is no “copying it frame by frame”. If you do that, it will always look horrible on screen. Therefore, we enhance reality.

This is my video reference:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/180turn_am.mov 480 360]

Anyway, I’ve been having a hard time with this. I tried making a walk based on my video reference. But it came out pretty bland and not very appealing. And, it isn’t conveying the personality that I want it to. Here is the rough draft:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/personality_v01.mov 480 360]

It sucked… a lot. So I started exaggerating some of the key poses and sort of ‘fell into’ a new idea. As I was tweaking his ‘extreme ups’, I saw that it kind of looked like a skip. So I decided to run with the idea of having him in a brisk walk with one skip toward the end. I really suck at sketching out my ideas, so I didn’t bother. I just started blocking straight ahead. Here’s the second result:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/personality_v02.mov 480 360]

It’s better, but the timing sucks badly. I’m not really sure how to fix it without re-shooting the video reference with the new idea and recalibrating the timing. Ugh… It’s a lot of work any way you slice it.

Here is the same animation but with smoother timing on the extremes. Overall, the whole thing is shorter.

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/personality_v03.mov 480 360]

I still have a quirk with the knees, but not in the forward movement. Check out frames 5-8. The knee actually moves backward for a frame. The only things I can think of to prevent that is either cheat and stretch the leg, or not have him dip down so much on the extreme down. In my reference footage, I notice that my knees bend very little when they aren’t off the ground.

My second pass. Still working out the kinks in the knees.

My first fluid pass of the walk cycle. It sucks, yes, I know.

So here is the animation (2nd blocking pass):