Characterised Walk Cycle

I have decided to base my characterised walk cycle on a spy holding his hands as a gun and creeping with more or less no weight in his walk - no "bounce" in between each step.

I have adapted the walk cycle by lowering the hips to rid of the bounce in Moom's step and positioned his hands up into a shape of a hand-gun. Maybe needs his head moving as if looking around nervously?

Video Reference Development

Before beginning to animate, I have studied and drawn the basic body shapes and timed these.

After studying the video through making these thumbnails and timings, I feel ready to animate. Here is my first capture:

The arms need to be revised during the fall but the shapes are positions of the key frames are mostly effective.

Have continued to revise the arms in this capture, however they are still not right at the moment of impact to the floor.

Have revised the arms and the football bounce. However, although I have kept the timings of the animation realistic in terms of the reference video, the fall looks to slow so needs to be speed up.

FINAL ANIMATION:

Video Reference

For the last part of our brief, we have to take a video footage and use it as reference to animate the Moom character. After watching all of the video footage on myUCA I have decided to use the following footage as reference material for my animation...

I have chosen this video because I think the individual poses, especially in Jack's fall, will create an interesting animation and will be fun to animate as well!

Shuttlecock

Last of the 3 Ball exercises. Starting by getting the bounce right minus the rotations.

Added rotation:

FINAL SHUTTLECOCK (with added spin at the end):



Bowling Ball

Second of my 3 bouncing ball excercises. This is based on the following youtube reference video:

Similar to the Tenns Ball, I began by getting accurate timings of the ball in terms of the height and bounce distance.

Once the timing has been figured out, I added a rotation onto the ball:

FINAL BOWLING BALL:



Tennis Ball

My first of the 3 ball bouncing excercises. I found that using the squash and stretch effectively emphasized the bounce of the tennis ball and found that the bouce worked well bouncing across the screen rather than up and down on the spot.

Firstly, I need to get the ball bounce looking realistic in terms of height, distance and timing.

Once I was happy with the timing, I began adding squash and stretch.

Here is my final Tennis Ball:

Ball Bounces Thumbnails

Before animating the shuttlecock, tennis ball and bowling ball I had to time the reference videos in terms of the time it took for the ball to reach the peak and floor of the bounce and record these in the form of thumbnail skteches:

Walk Cycle

Here is my standard walk cycle, characterised cycle to follow...

Third of the 3 Poses

Here is the last of the three various poses of my character.
For this pose, I decided to use the characters Deadpool as inspiration. This is because of the interesting twist in the upper body as well as the raised legs which I hadnt had chance to experiment with as much in my previous poses...



Action Poses

To help further my experience and practice with SoftImage, we were given the task of posing the moon character into dynamic action poses...
NO COPYRIGHT INTENDED!

Bouncing Ball - V3

Here is my third attempt animating a bouncing ball. I feel that the landing timing of the third bounce has been improved and that this animation works successfully :)

Bouncing Ball - V2

This is my second attempt animating a bouncing ball. I feel the weight of the ball is reflected well in this attempt and the timing is also improved especially in the second main bounce.
However, the landing of the second bounce still needs polishing...

Bouncing Ball - V1

First attempt of making a ball bounce!
Although I think the transition key frames are correct as well as the shape of the ball, the timing still needs work especially at the top of each bounce...

Slide - V3

In this version, I have figured out how to remove an unneccessary key frame which was placed just after the point of contact of the second bounce which has given the ball a smoother transition thorugh the second loop which works more effectively I feel.

Slide - V2

Here is my second version, still not happy with the bounce of the ball through the second loop. However, I feel the landing of the ball into the box looks more realistic!

DS_Slide

This exercise was moe challenging than the croquet one because the animation of the ball was more demanding. This is my first draft and after rewatching I feel that the timing of the ball is unconsistant and needs work! Especially when it slows down in pace to roll through the second hoop. Also, the landing of the ball into the box needs work as its sudden stop gives the appearence of the bottom of the box being soft almost like quick sand as if the ball has been swallowed by it. Also, the ball's transform key frame needs editing to raise it on the y axis so it doesnt half dissapear as it lands in the box.

DS_Croquet

My second exercise using Soft Image and this time I am animating! We were given the scene already loaded with the modelled ball, hammer and goals for the ball to go through. Our objective was to make the hammer swing with a follow through and the ball roll thorugh the goals.
Although the animation at first seems simple enough, I found getting my head around the animation tools quite challenging, especially editing the key frames eg. their position in terms of time and also in terms of the position of the actual model which is being animated.
However, after playing about and working through trial and error, I believe that my understanding has greatened and now I just need to practice to further my skills in this programme.

I feel that the timing works well apart from the second of contact between the hammer and the ball where it looks to lag slightly. Other then that, I feel the rotation of the ball works well and so does the follow through of the hammer.

Film Ideas Pitch

This was the first time I have had to speak to a large group of people about my own ideas and I have to admit, it was nerve-racking! However, I think the hardest part of it all was making myself put my hand up to say that I would go next. Once I had made my way to the front of the class and began talking, it wasnt that bad. I think my pitch went well in terms of I said all that I wanted to say and believe my idea was put across to the "audience" successfully. Next time, I just need to make sure I remember this experience and not get so worked up about it before hand!
Watching fellow animators pitches, what I think worked well was using visual material to help illustrate to executive producers etc. exactly what you envision for your film as a finished product. Also, what worked extremely well was the use of role play as I still have not forgotten his pitch because it was so different to anyone elses.
Since the pitch, I have been given the role of producer (woop!) for an animation based around the idea of a make-your-own family kit which sounds exciting. Cant wait to get stuck in! 

Mr Potato Head

For my first excercise using Autodesk Soft Image, the task was to construct a Mr and Mrs Potato head with the previously modeled parts and then, using Photoshop, create a short comic strip. I found using the programme to be really fun once I figured out how to manouvre the camera with the different mouse buttons.
Thinking of a story simple enough which could be conveyed in 4 frames of a comic strip I found quite hard so used Superman as the basis for my strip. Superheroes instantly set a scene of a victem needing to be rescued all that was required for my strip to work is scene to be clearly set displaying an obstacle for my hero.

I believe in this strip the scene is successfully set, however, the font colouring is unclear in the 3rd and 4th frames and therefore need editing!

Redo

The blue font stands out better in the frames.