Character dodge roll cycle research and development

So for this animation, (dodge roll) I wanted to begin by Filming Aaron again and mixing his knowledge of mixed martial arts into the equation. He started off by mixing judo rolls with his own interpretation of a dive roll. This was filmed from the back and front,to get an idea of what arm and leg movements would need to be applied,when it came to animating. As you can see in the two animations sequences, they show the development of when I started of by just animating the rotation and leg movements. two when I involved the arms and head.

Because of the speed of which the action is done in, the video couldn't be played on repeat, so I thought of highlighting the main sections,of the animation to which I could pose my character in each section, there in turn making the animating process much easier.  I wanted to choose this animation as I thought the process of making it would present a challenge and  good portfolio as it involved difficult movements.

Robot knock back cycle research and development

Assisted by Aaron Hall I filmed reference footage which could be interpreted as a similar motion as the stunt was hard to do, especially with the fact at the start I had planned that the character would almost do a sort of back flip motion However the closest we could get was a backwards roll. During the creation of this animation, (which can be seen after the reference footage), it became difficult to keep the rigs body from caving in on itself as the  rotation motion bent the body quite a bit which can be seen at the end of the video and below.

Cat hang shimmy research & development

Cat hang shimmy

From these three videos you can see the continuous development, going from the two research videos of people doing this action to the pretty much the final motion which can be seen in my mesh view in the third video. The positives about doing this animation were the fact that I got to work with interacting the character with an object e.g. the climbing wall. However the problems of animating this soon came fourth, as getting the hands positioned correctly became an ever increasing problem. I had to make sure that the hands were just above the holds, to look like he was hanging from the object while in motion.

manaquin pushing a block cycle research and development

For This animation sequence, I started off by filming Aaran Hall, to get a sort of feeling of how I would create the image of a character pushing a block. I did this to get a feeling of how the weight would be distributed around the legs and feet. Not only that but I wanted to get a feeling of how the arms would look if they were spread out (which isn't particularly done a lot in this type of action). After the reference footage there are two videos, which show the development of how I only started off with the movement of the legs and later furthered my development to show arm, back and head movement. The reason why I chose to do this particular sequence, was because in most games nowadays there tends to be objects that you can push, and I wanted show That I am not lacking in that particular skill, of doing this type of animation.

Heavy walk cycle research and development

Here is another example of footage which I filmed, helped by (Aaron Hall), in which I used the footage as reference for the Heavy character  from the team fortress game for my walk cycle. For the reference footage I ask Aaron to be sort of laid back, (leaning backwards) but also to have heavy steps (not quite stomping) because of the character being very large. To add to the laid back effect, I asked Aaron to slowly swing both of his arms.

 As you can see after the reference footage, I worked on getting the heavy characters leg movements, fairly similar to the footage. Moving on from that, I introduced the swaying of the shoulders and head, to which all humans unconsciously do. I wanted to introduce a human walk cycle, as it would show the basics of animation.

wolf run cycle research and development

After trying my first failed attempt at a wolf run cycle,I searched through the internet for reference pictures, to which I could use to get more fluid movement in the back and legs.
Later on I found that Posing the wolf in these positions and repeating that cycles gave much more fluid movement and became quicker to animate.

In this first example of me trying to animate the wolfs legs, you can see the inconsistency of the movement, as the timing is completely off. This animation was scrapped and I started again with it.

dragon flying cycle research and development

Taking Reference from slow-motion videos of bats and insects, posted on YouTube, I started to examine the movements of the wings, because there aren't many animals, you could compare having similar movements, to the mythical dragon creature.  So to start off  I looked into how the wings themselves flap when the bat brings them back and fourth. I found that the wings were like a robust cloth flapping in the wind. For other ideas I looked into the dragon fly which was not quite the same as you don't see much flapping and it really wasn't what I was going for, but was another option that I explored. after the reference footage you can see the development of the dragon, going from just being able to flap its wings to head and body movement as well.

As well as using the reference footage I also used this to help with my dragon flying animation.