Advanced Animation - Project 1
Oct 7th, 2022 - Oct 14th, 2022 (Week 6 - Week 7)
Rusydina Fazlin Athirah Binti Fauzi
Advanced Animation
Week 6 [Oct 7th, 2022]
Project 1 - Walk Cycle Animation
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 1
Week 6 - Advanced Animation (Rigging Animation)
Walk Cycle Animation
Oct 7th, 2022
To start off the first project, the following brief as seen below are the requirements to be met up with to complete this project.
Project 1, Brief:
1. Walk Cycle Animation (Progress)
We started with Mr. Kamal's guidance on working out the first part of the walk cycle, which is just a casual walk cycle. The way that we started off the keyframing and placement of the 3D model is through examples of walk cycle poses, as seen below:
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| Figure 1.0 - Walk Cycle poses |
Each of these poses in a way to achieve the walk cycle acts as a good reference.
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| Figure 1.1 - Keyframing 3D model #1, October 7th, 2022 |
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| Figure 1.2 - Keyframing 3D model #2, October 7th, 2022 |
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| Figure 1.3 - Keyframing 3D model #3, October 7th, 2022 |
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| Figure 1.4 - Keyframing 3D model #4, October 7th, 2022 |
As seen above it was a step-by-step process and an important thing to keep in mind so when moving a limb, make sure:
- Frames would be in 25fps
- The limb that moves is selected > I > Set location (as keyframes)
- Repeat process
Graph Editor
Now we'll move into the graph editor that contributes to a much smoother movement for the animation.
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| Figure 1.5 - Graph Editing 3D model #1, October 14th, 2022 |
When selecting each rig this would be displayed in the graph editor, a way to prevent this, is by selecting one part of the rig in the model, that you want to apply the movement.
As seen below, only the hip is selected, the green line determines the smoothness of the Z-axis when the model animation comes in contact when the walk cycle animation is being played.
I've decided to go for the 4th walk cycle from the video as a reference, the catwalk.
Before I began with the walk cycles pose, I utilized the gif above as pose references by splitting the frames from the gif through a gif > image sequence converter.
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| Figure 1.6 - Graph Editing 3D model #2, October 14th, 2022 |
A simple way to understand the graph is that the arcs are the impacts of the walk cycle poses,
Things to keep in mind when working with the graph editor:
- Those keyframes are to make sure they are aligned with each other
- if not, the impact would be delayed or too quick
- When turning those keyframes into down arcs or up arcs
- make sure they are in the similar position
- this prevents additional keyframes to the walk cycle
once the keyframes placements are completed along with a few tweaks with the assistance of graph editing, the final outcome of the animation would be like this.
Vanilla walk cycle - outcome:
2. Walk Cycle Animation, Attitude walk (Progress)
For the second part of the first project, Mr. Kamal entrusted us with working out and studying our own walk cycle of any kind of attitude. Where we are able to analyze the poses of the particular chosen attitude walk cycle to be animated as the second submission to Project 1.
I carried out the exploration of multiple walk cycles through the video seen below:
I've decided to go for the 4th walk cycle from the video as a reference, the catwalk.
But referring to a video was not enough, I had to look through google as the source to find a more vivid pose when a 'catwalk' walk cycle is being played out.
-or in other words, I want to try to achieve a feminine-like walk with the references of videos, gifs, and images I've listed down below.
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| lilo_and_stich_nani_walk_cycle |
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| female_character_walk_cycle |
There's a reason why I have chosen these gifs to help in making out the poses when animating and keyframing the 3d character model, they may have a similar walk cycle with the vanilla walk cycle, but their hips have more movement compared to a vanilla walk cycle.
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| Figure 1.7 - Catwalk poses |
Before I began with the walk cycles pose, I utilized the gif above as pose references by splitting the frames from the gif through a gif > image sequence converter.
From then on, I begin the process of the walk cycle pose.
It first getting the poses down was a little tricky for my kind of attitude walk.
But I slowly started to get the hang of it, in the process of the poses I changed the facial expression of the rain 3d model into a sassy-looking or a confident look that would be the kind of attitude walk that I'm keyframing.
Even when getting the hang of the poses, during the playback of each frame and its poses there were still a few poses that may not have aligned. But I did the best of my abilities to achieve a type of attitude walk which was the goal.
Once I completed the poses according to the practices done throughout the vanilla walk cycle along with Mr. Kamal's tutorial notes, I moved one to edit the lines in the graph editor for the impact keyframes along with the low, passing, and high keyframes to have a smoothing look to it by adjusting the arcs in the graph editor.
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| Figure 1.7 - keyframing, attitude walk,3D model #1, October 20th, 2022 |
It first getting the poses down was a little tricky for my kind of attitude walk.
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| Figure 1.8 - keyframing, attitude walk,3D model #2, October 20th, 2022 |
But I slowly started to get the hang of it, in the process of the poses I changed the facial expression of the rain 3d model into a sassy-looking or a confident look that would be the kind of attitude walk that I'm keyframing.
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| Figure 1.9 - keyframing, attitude walk,3D model #3, October 20th, 2022 |
Even when getting the hang of the poses, during the playback of each frame and its poses there were still a few poses that may not have aligned. But I did the best of my abilities to achieve a type of attitude walk which was the goal.
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| Figure 1.8 - graph editing, attitude walk,3D model #4, October 20th, 2022 |
Once I completed the poses according to the practices done throughout the vanilla walk cycle along with Mr. Kamal's tutorial notes, I moved one to edit the lines in the graph editor for the impact keyframes along with the low, passing, and high keyframes to have a smoothing look to it by adjusting the arcs in the graph editor.
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| Figure 1.9 - camera and lighting, attitude walk,3D model #4, October 20th, 2022 |
Once all those steps were completed, I added a scene for the walk cycle to be displayed by adding a camera and a few lighting objects to complete the walk cycle (attitude walk), resulting in the final outcome:
Attitude walk cycle - outcome:
Reflection
October 20th, 2022
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Seven weeks in advanced animation and exercises was only the beginning of the challenges, I do have to admit that the first project was quite an obstacle to overcome. Even when understanding the techniques of Blender (where the 3D animating takes hold), this first project obviously focused on animation and animation in walk cycles but translated to a three-dimensional appeal to it.
Its quite well aware that the second part of the project was not the best when it came to its outcome, it does take skill and a lot of practice in being able to identify a pose frame by frame to put out a smooth animation. But it was still something I'd take appreciation upon myself to navigate my way through Blender.
Just need a little tweaking in understanding and analyzing much more in-depth poses to help in keyframing poses when rigging a 3d model and animating it in the end.
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