Animation - Walk Cycles: February 2011

Friday, 25 February 2011

Information

Name: Nathan James Elliss
Course: Mart Animation
Project: Walk Cycles
Email: b0020758@my.shu.ac.uk

Rotoscoped Muybridge animal (Baboon), Task4.
Finally, I created an animation using the Baboon from Muybridge's animals, again using Adobe Flash. I created this animation by downloading a series of pictures of a baboon walking and uploading them into Adobe flash. I then drew over each layer in a new layer, using the technique rotoscoping. After I had finished drawing over each layer of the monkey, with my graphics tablet, I noticed that the animation wasn't as smooth as it should be. I then decided to create a blank key frame in between each frame that I had drawn, tracing over the monkey. This technique was to make the animation look a lot smoother and more like he's walking, not running. I then finished off the animation by rendering each frame and adding an eye to the baboon, to really bring it to life.

C

Stylised Walk Cycle, Task3.

This walk cycle was my favourite to produce because I enjoyed creating my own character and making him walk the way I want, in a stylised sneak cycle. For this animation, I used Adobe Flash again. I firstly drew a skeleton using a stickman figure, so that I could do it fast and efficiently and get the motions right. After I had got the motions looking smooth, I decided to draw round each frame, using onion skin so that I could get it just right. I then rubbed out all the skeleton and rendered the new detailed body that I had created. I didnt go into too much detail, so i used a simple, skinny boddy with long skinny legs. Finally, I decided to create a comical face, where I used the circle tool for the outline and drew on a face. I created a little neck using the line tool.

I used some images to help me get the motions right, Here is a picture below which helped me with some of the key poses.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/2326998892_576d350260.jpg

B

Running Cycle, Task2.
For this animation, I simply drew each layer again and again using Adobe Flash. I used onion skin mostly for this, where i looked at the frame before, and changed it a little bit in the next frame on. After I had finished it, I realised that you couldn't see which arm and which leg it was, so i decided to colour the left arm and left leg blue, and the right arm and right leg red, just like I had done in the walk cycle. This allows you to see each body part easily and it also looks better. I tried speeding this animation up in after effects, but I liked the animation as it was already, so I decided to keep it the same speed as it was when I rendered it out from Adobe Flash.

Here is a a few images that i found off 'Google images' which helped me with my running cycle.
http://www.stonesbucket.com/images/runimgrevised.png

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxTk9Ml8r9xcdBFeOD4BWMv3LtYYZBoRNl0Wipi06MSMm9wOUHQhgekx1-ekkIYEd3Ij4_s947n9pFkymK99WjOUiBpStRotwiAOHl1vT863pESA6Sk-1p9PPZUbBwZUJS-vj5sAxWHlJ/s1600/hotfuzzrun.png

A

Walk Cycle, Task 1.
Before producing any walk cycles, I went out and bought a Wamcom graphics pen tablet, so that it would help me with this project, and many more animation projects in the future. For this walk cycle, I used a simple stickman figure in Adobe Flash CS4/5. I gave the stickman different coloured arms and legs, so that it would be easier to spot the right arm and right leg, from the left arm and the left leg. For this animation, I

firstly drew the body and the head in one layer so that I didnt have to allign the head up to the body everytime. I then created a new layer for each arm and leg, so that they were all seperate and didn't collide with each other when animating. Lastly, i created the feet, which was the most difficult part. This is because it was hard trying to get each foot alligned up with the legs.

Below is a picture of some reference material that helped me for my walk cycle.

http://www.idleworm.com/how/pic/a0002/wlk08.gif