[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2008/11/justbringit_392lg.mov 640 480]

This isn’t even the whole shot. He has yet to say “Thank you!”.
[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2008/11/justbringit_391lg.mov 640 480]

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.

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.

I tweaked the tail. Just working more on the overlapping action.

I animated the tail.

Ok, so I took in all the notes I’ve been getting: Reducing/controlling the s&s, fix the arcs, check the bounces/contact frames, adjust the speed/spacing in certain areas, and a couple others…

I muted the rest of the tail for now. I’m just working the first link, per Andres’ suggestion, to get the proper base for all the overlap about to follow. Besides, animating the tail when the body isn’t done… is not wise. If you change the body, it’s a real headache to try to move layers of keyframes, so you end up redoing the whole section anyway. I’m just going to save it for later. Maybe friday night.

It’s really rough. But not too rough to crit. Please let me know what you think!

I managed to finagle it as much as possible to take in the advice. The first hit against the wall is with a little more force now (the tangent is now straight and not bent there), and I even have it lose energy in that hit as well to make up for the speed difference and to drop the ball a little lower on the rebound so it doesn’t feel so snappy after that.

So, this is the update with everyone’s advice to heart. What do you think?

Next note was all about the rotation, to which the end solution was ‘to not focus on the rotation until the vertical bounce was right’. So, Viola! No rotation to deal with yet!

Next note was a personal observation. The whole shimole needed to be at maximum, 100 frames. *grumble* *grumble*

Here it is; Revision 03:
[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov 480 360]

But, this is what I got out of it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov 480 360]

This is not a serious upload! But if you want to crit, they are always welcome!