Second try_Maya_Buckid Run and Jump_ Tangent editor

• This is second try with Buckid run and jump. This time, I took James's advice that work on the graphic editor to adjust the movement.
• From the graphic editor, I spot the reason of Buckid floated in the air. The line gone up gradually but then became flat and parallel at some points, this indicated that the object has been paused and stop moving. That's why the Buckid floated in the air.

• To solve this problem, I adjusts the inappropriate curves and deleted some unnecessary tangents. Now, the Buckid runs a lot more smoother than first experiment. 
• This experiment has made me to understand the importance of graphic editor and made me enhanced more skills as well.

I also learned how to enhance the video quality. The screenshot below shows the setting I should used to show the best video quality. 

Irritating insect 2

I did irritating insect again.
It looks much better compare to last one; the movement is smoother but still jerky. However the there is a story and the anticipation is clearer as well.
The only thing that I dissatisfy is that when the armature turned around, he feet was sliding, there should have some appropriate steps to show movement,but what I did was rotate the ankle and foots straight away. 
If I have more time, I will solve this problem and make him look more irritated. 

Irritating insect_1

This is fist try of irritating insects. It was very difficult to manipulate.
The walk seems wired and when the armature tried to blow away the insect, the movement was too quick to see.
the good thing is that I have completed the entire story although it's satisfied.
next time, I will hold more frame to show the drama and observation scene, I will also focus on the feet when the armature attempted to swat the insect.

Planning of irritating insect

The video above is a reference that helps with animate the armature. I have chosen irritating insects as final stop motion exercise and I recorded myself as the references. 

Barsheet 

Experiment of magician tricks video

I have done a vine mageic video about mouse changing.  This is to experiment with how to make a vine magic video. It was not that easy as I thought, because of the moving position, audiences can easily spot the differences. 

Maya_Buckdid Walk

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

• This is final Buckid walk on Maya.
• I felt it is slightly better than first time because I used blocks to measure the distance between toe and heel.
• This time, I used side view when keyframe the buckid and it helps me to set out the accurate posture.
• I should focus on the four postures next time e.g. contact, down, passing and up.

Maya Sneak

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

• This is the final sneak I have done on the Maya.
• It was difficult to operate the feet and pelvis but as the progress went along, the Buckid went better and better.
• There was one problem during the practice, the right foot did not fully landed on the ground, which resulted into a weird sneak.
• Apart from floated foot, I also noticed that the balance and weight were not fully expressed. As we sneak forward, the pelvis should have inclined one side, as the weight is fully focus on one foot. Therefore, I rotated the pelvis at the same direction as the foot with weight on. It would give a better understanding of the balance and weight expression. 
• If the problem rise again, I would look at some reference video in order to simulate the movement. 

push and Pull

 Barsheet 

Gibbs Reflective Cycle 

• This is the first try of push and pulls exercise. I did not use any reference sources because I just want to give it a try.
• I think it is not that bad, at least you can see the purpose of the armature's trying to push the thing. 
• The good thing about this experience is that I have gained more understanding of dynamic, but still have to work on timing; it needs more hold while pushing the door, to show the struggles.
• I could add more frames to make the situation better, as well as more movements.
• If the problem rises again, I would repeat the frames in order to extend the timing.  

Push and Pull Second try 

• There is a obvious improvement in second try. However, I could add more body language to enhance the interests such as use shoulder to push the wall or slide the feet to show the dynamic. 

Three Step Walk 3

Gibbs Relective Cyle

This is third walk cycle I have done
It looks a lot better than last two but still odd
Especially the arms, they waved unevenly and messed up the walk.
I always aware that arms also wiggling like a pendulum, but my arms do not have any principle at all. 
Next time, I will focus on the arm movement as well, in order to make a better armature walk. 

Walk cycle barsheet and reference video

This will be the reference video for my stop motion exercise.I had reduce the speed so viewers can see the movement of the feet clearly. 

As I observed the video above, I noticed that the average time of each step is around 2 seconds. Therefore,  the total armature video will take 8 seconds that include 2 seconds hold.

Reality is always crueler than planning. When I started animate the armature, the timing is too quick and it felt so wrong. There are several faults in the video, firstly, timing. The armature walked too fast, which completely different from my barsheet. Secondly, the distance between toe and heel is not right as well. Thirdly, the staging is horrible as the viewer can not see the waving arms at all. 

The walk still looks very odd but slightly better this time. When left foot step forward, the other foot seemed slide backward, which look like Micheal Jackson's dancing step.  I don't know the reason yet but I will do more practice to get a better walk cycle later. I am happy with my progress as first time I did a terrible video without timing and spacing, but this time, I'm getting improving.

Walk cycle

In animation, a walk cycle is a series of frames or illustrations drawn in sequences that loop to create an animation of a walking character. A good walk cycle is very important to the character as it indicates the personality and features of the character. 

The image above is the walk cycle reference from The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams. You can see the method he used is key pose to pose where he had drawn five key poses: contact, down, pass position, up and contact again. These five key poses are the essential of a walk cycle, with this you can create a fluently walking character.  

Emotion to Emotion Exercise

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

• This is emotion to emotion exercise. I've picked joyful and scary as two emotions of armature going to present.
•  I felt unsatisfactory about the final video I've done because it did not show the joyful clearly. People would confused of the action armature firstly did. I attempted to make it applaud and laughing while standing up, then cover the eyes, sit back again. The pose should clearly communicate to the audience the mood, but my armature did not pose well which confused the audience about what he's doing.
• The good thing is I presented two poses, joyful and scary in the stop motion animation. Nonetheless, the pose of joyful wasn't been presented clearly.
• I could apply the principle Staging in the video. Staging directs the audience's attention toward the most important elements in a scene in a way that most effectively tells the story.
• I could also make a better joyful pose such as jump up or lean backward to show the happiness.
• If this problem rise again, I would make stop motion few more times. 

Block Challenge

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

• This is the block timing challenge that I did in the Maya
• I felt struggling to figure out the timing as two blocks had to move in the different times but relatively. Also, I did not know how to make blocks jump and set the correct frames for them.
• The good thing about this experience was that I got a bit idea about how to start walk. As Johny mentioned, if we experiment with the challenge, we would understand the basic idea of walk cycle. And here I am, after complete the exercise, I've learnt how to move two block effectively as human feet. However, it still seems unperfected. 
• This situation could be improved if I do the practice again
• I am sure that I will make the block challenge much better than this one next time.
• If the problem rise again, I will practice more often. 

I did timing challenge again and this time it looks much better. As I had experience from last, the distance between two blocks are even and appropriate.

Redo-Buckid Poses

Gibb's Reflective Cycle

• I made several buckkid poses again because I want to practice more and enhance my acknowledges with IK and FK
• I felt pretty confident this time as I had some experiences 
• The good thing about this practice is that I gained more experience with IK and FK techniques, however I felt bad when make his legs bend because there's not IK/FK on his knees.
• I could adjust his toes or hips to simulate the reference photos.
• I could also rotate the legs to improve the poses
• If the problem rise again, I would focus on the existed tools rather than pissed off by non-exist things. 

Reference Video and Bar sheet for exercise 2-Emotion to Emotion

Observation -reference video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoyizS-5GL4 

Here is a video that I used as reference video. In this video, it depicted the audience's reaction while watching horror movies, I decided to pick the reaction of laughing and scary for the exercise. The actors in the video performed very well although it seems slightly exaggerate in the real life. Their reaction is the perfect reference source for animator because their body language is abundant.  

Translation -Bar Sheet

Gibb's Reflective Cycle

• Here is my bar sheet for exercise 2 Emotion to Emotion. I've chosen joyful and scary as two emotions I'm going to develop. I first came up with two main poses and then pondering in between poses. 
• I felt proud of my drawing because this time I drew every main pose on the bar sheet to help me guide the timing. 
• The good thing is I understand every movement I am going to use, but I am not sure about the timing and spacing. As you see, I put some question marks on it to show the uncertainly. 
• To solve the timing problem, the best way is to do more practice. People learn things from experiments. 
• I could also read more books about animation principle to enhance my acknowledges. 
• If the problem rise again, I would spent more time on observation and count the time the actor's been used. 

 

Buckid poses

Pose 1- Sit on the floor with legs slightly lean back, one hand put on the floor to support the body weight and look forward. 

Pose 2- stand up with one leg and arms wiggle around around

Pose 3- look confidently with one hand pinch the waist and one leg slightly rise the tiptoe

Pose 4- half leaning on the floor with one elbow support the body and the other one put on the bent  knees 

Pose 5- Stand relax with one hand rise over the ear and the other put on the waist, legs across each other as well

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

• I designed several relax poses with Buckid to develop and practice my understanding of Maya animation such as rigs, path controller, joints adjustment etc. 

• I feel it was difficult to move the rigs at the first because I often accidentally clicked on the Buckid's body instead of the rigs, which leads to broken body. In addition to the rigs, I also struggled with IK and FK.

• The good thing about this experience was that it developed my knowledge of rig animation and the bad thing was that it confused me a lot, sometimes, I could not figured out the IK and FK.

• To gain more understanding with IK and FK, I could do some research to get the basic information about it.

• I could also watch more tutorials on the Lyda.com, it is a excellent video education website that helps people with various of programs.  

 

• If the problem rose again, I would do some research first and watch the tutorial or ask professional people to help me. I would also spent more time to practice in order to understand it  in depth. 

Armature Sit-Stand exercise 1 bar sheet

Here is my bar sheet of exercise sit -stand.

Armature Exercise 1 Sit-Stand up-Look around-Sit

The first exercise of armature is to make it sit, then stand up, look around and sit back again. We aimed to characterised the armature by consider of the ages, genders, personalities and physical abilities...

Reference video and observation 

Here is a referenced video that performed by my little sister. She acted quite unnatural but it's good enough for me to translate the movement onto the armature. 

From her movement, I can see she's kind relax at the beginning as her back leaned forward and her legs were kicking around. And then, she stood up quickly and shakes the head rapidly. It did not take long for her to stand up because she's young and actively. one thing I noticed from the observation is that when she's standing up, her arms rocked forward because of the dynamics. It also demonstrated the age effects to the behaviours as she's not mature enough to control the body. Finally, when she sat down, her back was straightly and putted her both hands on the knees, her legs closed tightly. All this movement has suggested that she's shy and slight embracing to act in front of the camera.

Translation and Animating 

Armature Exercise 1 Links https://vimeo.com/202738636

There are massive differences between the observation and actual animating. My final armature does not look like the reference video at all because of a number of reasons. First of all, I tried to make her two legs kick up to show the energetic, but  the armature fell down the chair once his feet leave the floor. It was really irritated that I could not balance the character. 

Therefore, I gave up the idea of making her energetic, and focus on shyness. Well, this time it looks pretty good and characterize. 

For improvement, I had a solution to make the armature's leg kick up. I could lift one leg up and stick the other one on the table with magnet. In this way, the armature won't fall over again and she can also show the personality as well, two birds with one stone!