Mentor Meeting 03

Mentor Meeting 03

Today I had my third mentor meeting, we ended up going into the drawing studio with the lecturer as he showed us the articulation of the body. This was extremely useful in helping me to think about animating my own characters.

Not only do the arms counter balance the legs but the shoulders also counter balance the hips but the shoulders can also move independently, so this is not always true.

Today's Work

I picked up where I left off with the walk cycle yesterday. I had a bit of a thinking to do before I really got into it. 

I have always done walk cycles at 24 fps (12 fps per step) and this obviously has been holding me back in some ways. I looked at "The Survival Kit" and Richard Williams talks about some very useful stufffff...

4 frames = a very fast run (6 steps a second)

6 frames = a run or very fast walk (4 steps a second)

8 frames = slow run or 'cartoon walk' (3 steps a second)

12 frames = brisk, business like walk - natural walk (2 steps a second)

16 frames = strolling walk - more leisurely (2/3 of a second per step)

20 frames = elderly or tired person (almost a second per step)

24 frames = slow step (one step per second)

32 frames = ...show me the way...to go home (pp 110)

I need to think more about timing before I actually begin animating. This could also help me to make my exaggerated poses fit better in my walk cycles. I find myself often get some really nice exaggerated poses but I always ending up toning them down a bit since they never really fit and look out of place.

This is where the mentor meeting really helped today, Brian was telling us about the articulation and how exaggerated poses can be made to look believable if the parts of the body still respond to each other accordingly. The best example is that I had the character's head rocking back and forward in an exaggerated way...but also it was unrealistic. The reason behind this is that the head usually finds a point of reference when walking to keep a focus. This also allows us to save energy of course by keeping our heads still. 

Summary:

So essentially, I need to learn more about body weight distribution and how different parts of the body relate to each other. Hopefully I can apply realistic human movements (laws of movements) to my exaggerated poses to make them more believable.

(here is me breaking the rig by mistake)