WATCH YOUR STEP - FINAL PERSONALITY WALK

I had a lot of trouble with making the Animo turn the corners the way I had drafted it out. I wasn't sure how to give and take between having his center area/hips rotating and his whole body rotating. I had made his right leg twist and lead the turn but it still wasn't looking like I wanted. Most of my time was spent completing the second walk cycle because I thought the corner turning would be easy. The second walk cycle turned out to be more of a jog than a fast walk like I had planned, which I intended to fix but once I began to struggle with the corner turning I tried to focus on that instead. 

I think I kind of hindered my own learning by giving Animo the kind of walk I gave him because I found it difficult to envision how a person walking like that would turn a corner. In the end, I recorded myself walking like he does and turning a corner like he might have but I didn't find it helpful. It actually made it slightly more frustrating/confusing for me. 

Although I like the walk I made, it could still be improved a lot further as I admittedly didn't spend enough time trying to tweak it. Also, I both could and should have done more tests, not with just Animo but with the ball and tail as well. It would have helped me notice certain things much earlier on which would have prevented me from struggling in some of the places I did within this project. Overall, I'm not really satisfied with the final result but it's taught me how important it is with Maya to plan ahead and do things in the correct order, otherwise those mistakes will come back to haunt you.

Below is a revised storyboard with annotations.

BOUNCING BALL

In the first week we learnt how to Animate a bouncing ball by making key frames in the timeline. We were also shown how to alter the characteristics of those key frames within the graph editor. Below is a completed ball bounce that doesn't use the graph editor in any way. I just wanted to do a simple bounce of a ball that looks like it's quite heavy.

Below, is a bouncing ball that makes use of the graph editor and the squash/stretch handle. It's a ball that squashes when dropped from a tall height but looses its squishyness the lower its bounce arc gets.

TRAVELLING BOUNCE/ROTATION

I made another simple ball bounce animation using keyframes but had it travelling across the screen instead of bouncing on the spot. 

I then used the graph editor to alter its motion and bounce arcs.

After this, I used the ghosting and motion trail functions to review the path that the ball was taking. Here, I made a few tweaks to the arcs.

Lastly, I put on a ramp texture and keyframed in rotations on the x-axis using the timeline.

USING RECORDED FILM FOOTAGE

In one of our lessons, we were shown how to import movie footage into Maya for reference and guidance. In class, I managed to animate a bouncing ball over the footage but when I took it home and opened the file, it wasn't bouncing in the same position that the ball was. 

I used the graph editor to move the position of all the keyframes to closer match the rhythm that the basketball bounces in. 

BALL & TAIL

I attempted to animate a bouncing ball with a tail. I used 4 spheres and parented the 3 smaller spheres to the main sphere. After that, I parented the smaller spheres to each other.

I animated the Main Parent (large sphere) all the way to the end of the timeline, then went back and animated the smaller spheres. It didn't come out exactly as I wanted and I wasn't sure if this method was the best way to do overlapping animation, but I wanted to try it myself with the tools I had learnt so far before going to research an easier/better way to do it.

Below is the ball and tail animation I made with the rig we were provided with. It came out quite bad because at the time I was unaware that I had to keyframe all the movements before adding any squash and stretch to the character. Doing it the other way around caused the tail to go in directions that I hadn't keyframed it to.

After my formative assessment, I was given some advice so I went back and tried to do another one. I still found it quite difficult but then realised what I was doing wrong. I had been keyframing the base, middle and end tail sections all on the same frames. So they were all moving to the same timing which didn't make the tail move/follow like a tail naturally would. The principles of overlapping and follow through were absent. I made adjustments to it after noticing that and animated the base, then the middle then the end on keys that were 3-5 frames after the previous handle. Could still make lots of improvements with the graph editor, but I understand the concept much better now.

WALK/RUN CYCLE

I found doing the walk cycles the most enjoyable. I was quite familiar with doing walk cycles in 2D so I was curious to see how difficult I would find the transition. Granted, it was a bit of a headache at first but I learnt how important it is to get the foundation and key poses correct. Everything is made less troublesome if when that was done properly. 

Below are my walk cycles. One without squash and stretch, the other with it. I also did a run cycle, just for practice purposes. With all of these cycles, I can see how much more I can add to them. Mainly with feet pivots, the legs pointing in towards the center with each step. I could also play with the arcs a lot more in the graph editor. 

Below is my personality walk using the Digital Tutors rig. I based the walk off of these sketches that I made in class. In the drawing, the character was supposed to be walking quite slow and lazily, with his knees and head leading the walk. But when animating it, it turned into a more angry "i'm coming to get you" type walk. 

STORYBOARD

Below is the storyboard for the interaction between the walking man and the ball and tail.