Project 2 Part 2 – Arrogant/Gangster Walk Cycle

Decided on animating an arrogant walk, the kind which the stereotypical gangster possesses. Started with tilting the character's chin up to make it seem proud.  

Searched for some videos online for cues and some of the walk features and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y2_qpUMTDc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSLdeOBw5zg among a few others. I already had a proper idea on how the animation and walk should be done in my head but I just wanted to be sure on how to execute it. The head also slightly moves to the left and right with two or three steps taken.

A very common part of a gangster walk is the elaborate arm swing. The arm is swung much further than it would be in a normal walk cycle. To portray this, the value on the "Rotate Y" for the shoulder was multiplied by two and a half. The shoulder was also rotated a little more towards the outside of the body otherwise it will look unnatural when the arms swing in the path of the character's body. The gangster walk also has the arm swinging outwards more than it would normally. 

The clav also had to be adjusted, rotate Y axis was changed from 0 to 15 to be more specific, to make the arms swing out wider and giving the character the arrogant walk. 

Usually with the headphones on and the music being blasted loud, the character will bop its body in synchronization with the beat of the music played. That would result in the centre of gravity in going lower and I lowered it at alternate keyframe using the values -0.2 when the knees are straight and -0.8 when the knees are bent. 

The steps taken were adjusted slightly – it was made to take bigger steps.

A playblast of the animation.

Reflections

After completing the first walk cycle, this part was easier because I knew what to expect, what are the steps which needs to be taken and I knew the process which was going to be taken to complete the animation. I could learn from my mistakes I made in the first walk cycle and apply the shortcuts I found out to complete this walk cycle. The first few seconds were adjusted first and then played, when everything seemed to go smoothly, then all the keyframes are being copied for the remaining seconds – that is the tedious part of the whole animation. The video was two times longer because I didn't want the arrogant walk to be as fast as the standard walk cycle. 

Project 2 Part 1 – Standard Walk Cycle

Began by keyframing the two feet – one forward and another backward. When played, it will appear as though the character is shuffling/sliding through its steps. This is to get where the position of the feet will be after a step is taken.

The heel is then lifted up at a certain keyframe and the toes is being curled up. Whilst working on this part of the animation, I stood up and walked around the room to observe how the feet naturally goes up and lands down again in a normal walk. I then animated my observation on this character.

A normal walk is done and the legs of the character does appear to move naturally. The pelvis needs to be rotated next, according to which side the step is taken. The pelvis tilts to the right when the right foot is forward and to the left when the left foot is foward. Therefore, the keyframe of the pelvis will just follow the number set in the first step. 

Left and left, right and right.

The pelvis also has to rotate on the Z-axis so that when the right leg lifts up to take a step, the pelvis also tilts in the same direction. This also forms the rear moving left and right when a human walks. All adjustements that are done to the right are done to the left as well.

Arms also swing in a normal walk and that leads to the shoulders moving slightly as well. To animate this, the COG had to be rotate accordingly. In the walk cycle, the right arm moves forward when the left leg moves forward and vice versa. Thus, in the picture above, the COG is rotated to the right when the character's left leg is forward.

I found that the arms were a little to straight. Bending the elbows slightly to make it seem more natural.

Shoulders had to be rotated on the Y-axis to animate the arms swinging back and forth. Right arm and left leg.

Similarly with the left side of the animation.

The arms seem to have moved to much on the inside of the character. It gives an unnatural walk and I had to adjust it. Again, standing up and walking up and down the room to get the idea of how a standard walk is done – the arms swing back and forth but doesn't get in the way of the body or thighs.

A playblast of the standard walk animation done above.

Reflections

Half of this part was completed in class and I got home and finished up the rest. It is a good start to do a standard walk first and then do a walk with attitude which is going to be in the next blog post. I felt that this exercise was quite simple. All the body parts (legs, arms, COG and pelvis) had to be keyframed and adjusted in the first second and after that it was repetitive work for the next five seconds.

Walk Exercise

First exercise to get a rough idea on how the walking animation is done. We had to study and understand how a normal human being walks – what moves first, what follows after and what other parts move in relation to the walk or  another part moving. The left and right foot were moved accordingly to make it seem like the character is sliding his feet forward and backward, a little like shuffling. The feet are then moved up at certain keypoints because the feet needs to be lifted up to make it appear like its walking normally. The heels are then tilted up at the beginning of the lift and the brought down again when the foot is being placed down because in a normal walk, the heel does touch the ground first followed by the toes. The hips also have to move up and down accordingly. Adding to that, it also has to rotate slightly to the right when the right leg moves forward and same goes with the left side.

BigDog Exercise

i) If engineered or programmed badly, BigDog would fall over. Watch the full video again, and describe how BigDog’s legs move while walking– ie. what is the sequence of leg movements for one complete step? Use the terms BL, BR, FL, and FR for the back-left, back-right, front-left and front-right legs. 

BR - FL - BL - FR

ii) Explain how this sequence of movements manages to balance BigDog’s body weight. 

The sequence of movement enables the surface area of the dog to be as large as possible at all times and this makes the centre gravity of the dog balanced. The back leg on the right moves in the direction of the force first to keep the centre of gravity from toppling over. The legs on the outer side (the left in this case) moves away and with the direction of the force to widen up the surface area and thus making it bigger. 

iii) Look at BigDog_kick_slow_motion.mov. Draw a storyboard of BigDog stabilising itself after being kicked. You should draw the key poses. You don’t need to draw well – but you must show the leg positions and the body rotations around the X, Y and Z axes for each key pose.

A playblast of the exercise

Reflections
From this exercise, I understand how weight distribution works, how sequence of movements occur and an understanding of locomotion. The exercise was done in class with the tutor's guide and I thought it was quite meaningful in this module.

Spiderman Poses

Spiderman in the T pose – first step where all the work started

Adjusting his arms, placing them by the side to make the model appear relaxed

Arms are by the side but the straight fingers, tilted up head and straight back still makes it appear like it's about to get into a fight

Fingers has been curled like how it should be when relaxed 

as for the back and head where it has been tilted down slightly

A render of the Spiderman model looking relaxed 

First pose of the Spiderman, working on his fingers to make them into his trademark pose when he is about to shoot his web. Adjusting the thumb to get it spread out away from the other fingers far enough to be noticeable and not too much so it doesn't appear unrealistic. A fair bit of trial and error as well to get the bend for the middle and ring finger

Spiderman is about to shoot his web at the villains, or the building for him to get on top of 

A render of the pose 

A silhouette of the pose. I think this is quite a good one because from the silhouette, many should be able to tell that it's Spiderman.

Adjusting the torso and arms for the second pose 

A render of the second pose, the one which Spiderman uses when he first arrives at the scene to give his enemies a little scare

A silhouette of that pose. Might not be as good as the first one but after a few guesses anybody should be able to get it right

Getting Spiderman into his hanging upside down pose from a standing position – started with his hips and legs 

Adjusting his fingers to make them into a "fist",  bending the fingers was the easiest part where the arms are concerned. Placing both his arms into the right position was a huge challenge because the arm wasn't seemingly long enough to get into the position the picture showed. Pulling it up anymore or nearer to its body and it would appear distorted, the arm "going inside" his body. After some time, frustration and further studying the picture, I decided the the back and neck had to be adjusted as well. The back was bent a little, the hips were adjusted further and the neck was tilted up. After these adjustments were made, the left hand could get to the correct position and the right had followed suit. 

A render of the pose – Spiderman hanging upside down from his web

A silhouette of the pose. I thought that this was the most difficult out of the three. In my opinion, the silhouette suggests it's a good pose

Reflections
I felt that this was a really interesting exercise and from completing this,  I had a good idea on how animators make their rigging strike different poses including some difficult ones. After completing the first pose, I got the hang of it and found the second easier to do. The third pose where spiderman was hanging upside down proved to be the toughest one. I faced a lot of challenges especially when it came to the characters hands, I found it difficult to get them into position but I'm glad I finally completed it (though it took a very long time) and the silhouette looked quite good.

Production Pipeline + Reflection

Above is our group's production pipeline. Firstly I acted as the main character in the story. Afterwards I trimmed the raw video footage and arranged them in a flowing sequence - which was then passed on to my other groupmates so they can start on their work. The second part I played in producing the video was drawing and animating the virus used in attacking the main character. I used Maya 2012 and put all I was thought in IN3D to good use.

Screenshots of the virus drawing are in the previous blog post.

I also added in the background music and the sound effects in the video. Also,  I did the end scrolling credits, both using iMovie. Therefore in the production pipeline, I think my roles are those in the downstream part although I also had roles in the beginning like acting and trimming the raw footages.

Above is the video after the raw footages were trimmed and before the effects were added.

And our final video after the editing has been done.

Reflections

After 5 weeks of the 3D Production Foundation module, I definitely have learnt many things with regards to the production of a video and how computer generated imagery is being added into it. Not much, but the important gist of the whole thing I feel. After the video was completed it also gave me a little more confidence because now I know how to create a video, what are the steps that are needed to be taken, how things are being done and the whole process of it. Honestly I don't think the video can win the competition or even make it for the consolation prize but I think we have done a quite a good job given our short completion dateline.

Virus Drawing

Lion Exercise

Above are screenshots from the lion-zombie-human run exercise using Matchmover. After this first exercise, I have a much better idea of what matchmoving is and how it works. Seems like it's quite an interesting module to cover this term.

7 Rules of Matchmove (Week 1)

Matchmoving is a cinematic digital technique that allows the insertion of computer graphics and animation into a live-action video with correct position, scale, orientation and motion relative to the photographed objects in the shot.

It works by tracking the movement of the camera and the contrasting colours in it, that includes corners and distinct spots.

The seven rules of matchmoving are as follows:

1. There has to be something to track

2. Tracking things have to be done at different depths - perspective will become clearer

3. Have to get helper frames - take at least 10 different pictures from different angles

4. A little bit of foreground makes a better matchmove

5. Cannot track anything that moves

6. Cannot have too much foreground - markers will be lost if there's too much

7. Have to get a scale reference - measure distance between two points that is going to be tracked