Advanced Animation - Project 1: Walk Cycle

29.10.2024 - 12.11.2024  / Week 6 - Week 8

Chan Wan Qing / 0350928 / BA of Design (HONS) in Creative Media

Advanced Animation

Project 1 

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INDEX:

1. Lectures
2. Project 1: Walk Cycle
3. Feedbacks
4. Reflection

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LECTURES 

Week 6 / 29.10.2024

Miro Notes: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVLM5hIe4=/

1. Side View

2. Move hips forward with left leg, make sure the hip is at centre

1st Frame - Contact Pose

3. Set location and rotation

4. Add 0.5 for hip, one leg remain the same, another leg add 1, rotation 30 degree and -30 degree (next keyframe)

5. Move frame 2 to 3rd frame, in the empty 2nd frame, everything should be 0

6. Move right leg up 0.2

7. Down 0.05; Up 0

8. Rotate foot for down, following the previous frame

*Add modifier > Cycles > Repeat with offset 

Modifier

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INSTRUCTIONS

Project 1: Walk Cycle

For project 1, we are required to animate a vanilla walk animation in Blender with natural speed (2 steps a second) using pose to pose animation for the main action and straight ahead for getting the flexibility. Besides, we also need to animate an attitude walk with poses and timing. 

Vanilla Walk 

For vanilla walk, we did it in class with the demonstration of Mr Kamal. I pose the arms to both side of the body and move them forward and backward respectively opposite with the legs. I made it goes backwards and forwards too much since it's only basic walk. After that, I added the base and lighting and render it with cycles. 

Vanilla Walk

Attitude Walk

For attitude walk, I found reference on confident walking. In blender, I started on the steps like how we did in class. I pose the character from moving his hips and legs first in contact pose. Then, I pose the up and in between of the character. I moved his shoulder and arms up to show his confidence. 

Contact

In between 

Up

After that, I select the IK/FK to add modifier - cycles to make it play on repeat. I also added a base and lighting. Lastly, I render it out with cycles. 

Confident Walk

Final Project 1: Walk Cycle

Project 1: Walk Cycle (Compilation)

Revised Project 1: Walk Cycle (Vanilla Walk)

(Revised) Vanilla Walk

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FEEDBACKS

Week 11 / Project 1

For vanilla walk, the arms are too stiff. Make sure the ground should touch the feet. Attitude walk is good.

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REFLECTION

For me, this project seems easy but in fact, it is hard. Although we didn't need to draw each pose  frame by frame, but we need to make sure the poses are pose correctly. We also need to calculate the angle from one pose to another pose. We had to ensure that the head movement remained subtle and that the feet made proper contact with the ground at the correct moments. I feel like my vanilla walk looks a bit weird, either it's too bouncy or something else which I still can't figure out. But after understanding the concept, it can be easier to animate the walk cycle like the attitude walk. We needed to analyse and observe the reference on the poses and also the timing. I think the most important factor to show the character's attitude is the pose because it shows the body language. So, when doing the attitude walk, I focus more on his pose. Of course, timing is very important too. I make sure the timing of the walk cycle is consistent and reflects the natural rhythm of a walk.