BlogPost 11: Final Project (Part 2) - Stairs Cycle

For the second part of the final project for 3D Visualization and Animation, a task of making the model walk up a flight of stairs is expected for me to complete. In this second part of the project, I'm given the chance to complete a bonus mark assignment which is to make the animation jump down after walking up the flight of stairs. Since there is a bonus mark given, I decided to give it try, treating it as a new challenge for me.

Similar to the previous Walk Cycle assignment, I started by making key poses for the animation, for example; where the animation should jump to and when should it start dropping down and land realistically. I used references for the stairs cycle:

 

Image Reference for Walking Up Stairs Cycle

With the above reference, I was able to create the key poses accurately. The position of the hands, arms and legs are so important in creating a realistic animation for making it walk up the stairs. I then looked in the movement of the spine and hips to create a even more realistic animation. I have to take note of every single position of each body part so that the results of this project will be a positive one. Honestly, I had much trouble making the arms move in the right position as the body is moving upwards and causing the hand to move accurately together with the body, and also swinging at the same time. 

I have to point out that the bonus assignment is a very difficult and challenging task. Creating a motion of the animation jumping off the top of the stairs really caused me quite some time to create it. Every frame has to be looked into and the position of the animation will not be diagonally the same as the animation has a high point of its jump and that's where the acceleration of the body is slowed before it increases again when it reaches towards the ground. It made me think back the laws of gravity and how the body should move accordingly when the character jumps off, reaches the top point and lands realistically. Below is the image reference that I followed for this bonus assignment:

 

Image Reference 1: A Long Jumper's motion

 

Image Reference 2: A character jumping cycle from a stationary position.

It took so much time to just calculate where does the body move fast or where does it slow down when its in the air. The movement of the arms are also concentrated to create a more realistic production. I continuously stood up to jump off from some high point, focusing on what I do when I jump off and the way I land. From these "Personal Exercises", I was able to mark out the key poses of the animation when jumping, and landing. The head is also moved and positioned together with the shoulders, spines, hips to create a realistic mood for the viewer. Being in the air is still the most difficult part that I have to do as I have to keep in mind with the weight balance, laws of gravity and balance of the body. As a result, I completed the assignment and was quite pleased with my result of the animation. As I have explained in the previous blog that I'm going overseas on the 16th of December, my "Personal Dateline" was shorter than the given dateline 3 days earlier. If given the time, I would either mock up an environment around the character, or giving some audio and effects to make the animation a complete and a good one. Going through this second part of the project, it made me more excited for the next term to come and pushed me to be daring and take on challenges that are given to me.

Stairs Cycle (Perspective View)

Stairs Cycle (SideView)

BlogPost 10: Final Project (Part 1) - Walk Cycle

For the first part of the final project, we are tasked to animate a complete walk cycle of a model. Using the Joe-Rig model, I tried my best to display and meet all the requirements of this project. Several things are to be seen in this animation.

1. Balance
2. Understanding of Locomotion
3. Weight Distribution
4. Pace & Timing

I kept reminding myself with these requirements to produce a better animation at the end of this project. Several different parts of the body have to be looked at. Hands and legs are very critical to make the animation look very smooth, with the up and down motion of the head, shoulder, spine, hip and the entire body to show weight when each step is taken and when each leg is lifted away from the ground. Swaying of the head, spine, hip and shoulders are made to allow a more realistic mood for my animation.

First, I started creating key poses for the animation. With the following image references of different walk cycles, I was able to create the walk cycle successfully.

 Walk Cycle Reference 1

 

 Walk Cycle Reference  2

Making the key poses are quite simple but yet difficult at times as the rig may not be able to move as flexible as the people in the images show above. These key poses are very important as they may affect the entire outcome of the animation in terms of weight distribution, balance and realism.

Next, I head on to fill in the "in-between" frames between each key pose, adding details such as sudden drop of the head to show the character stepped onto the floor. Moving the frames into different positions so that there is a sense of acceleration seen in the animation, and then slowly slowing down to a complete stop. The movement of the wrist allows realistic arm movement by showing there's both weight and motion when the entire body is walking.

I've looked into the head of the animation to show a more obvious stepping motion every time the leg touches the ground to show realistic weight in motion.

Through all these steps, I was able to complete the project successfully. However, if given more time, I believe that I would be able to do more for the animation such as adding in a background/environment that the animation could be in and creating footstep sound to make it into a complete animation. However, I am going overseas on the 16th of December which shorten my "Personal Dateline" by 3 days. Even so, I feel that I've learned and understood a lot more about animation and also further increased my passion in creating animation for movie productions or just plain making movies in the future.

 

This is the result of this project in Perspective View.

 

This is the result of this project in Side View.