Walk Cycle & Jump

This assignment has taught he to carefully study the shifting weight of the body in order to make the animation as realistic as possible. I have noticed that the upper body and lower body rotate in opposite directions while the body is moving. This is to maintain the balance of the body.

In order to make the walk cycle look more realistic, I shifted the feet a little inwards because the feet are too far apart to maintain the body's balance. It is also easier to animate bacause I do not need to constantly shift the body control greatly for each step the character makes so that the body can maintain balance.

I think that the swinging of the arms can be done better. I reduced the arc of the swing because the character is walking slowly. Since the character is walking slowly, the strength in the arms has to be little.

I had to use the graph editor regulary to create nearly identical steps for the walk. I feel that doing this is faster than positioning each pose individually. I set all of the keys that I need first and adjust the values in the graph editor.

In this video, I made the character climb up stairs and jump off. I had to adjust the characters bottom spine so that the legs can come high enough to climb the stairs. I also made the character lean forward so that the character can maintain balance.

When the character lands, the feet touch the ground at an angle. I needed to rotate the feet back to normal so that the character can stand up later. I used a slide so that the errors in rotation cannot be seen easily.

Since the character stopped abruptly, I added follow-through to the body, causing the body to continue moving slightly while the feet are at the same position. I also used the foot roll to show that the charatcered stopped on his toes rather than his whole foot.

In this subject, I studied the movements of people or objects to be able to animate effectively. I have learned that it takes time, patience, experience and knowledge to be a good animator. I have also learned to use which rig for which occasion. It is important because it could lead to animation errors that cannot be solved.

In all, I feel that I have learned a lot from this subject and have gained something from this experience.

Big Dog Kick Weight Shift

In this exercise, I had to study videos about robots maintaining their balance in order to animate the model. Unlike the previous models, Big Dog uses 4 legs to maintain balance. Big Dog is moving and I had to check where the center of gravity is at every key pose. Before Big Dog stops, he is moving quite fast and I had his right leg suddenly move out to prevent the body from tilting over when Big Dog stopped.

I noticed that the front legs and back legs are alternating between opened and crossed. This is because if both sets of legs are crossed, Big Dog would have minimum balance but if both set of legs are opened, the legs will not move fast enough to be able to cope with the speed of the main body.

In this exercise, I have learned to use the body's center of gravity to prevent the character from falling or making the model's balance looking unrealistic. I have also learned that the body tries to get the best balance to prevent falling.

Character Lineage

When I thought about creating my character, I wanted a character who works in a team. I wanted the character to look different from the rest and give off a comical atmosphere. The character has to be strong and smart at the same time and an unusual body shape. I was thinking about having the character do a lot of comical jokes and gags and decided make the character look similar to a gorilla so that gorilla jokes can be created.

The first character that I used as a reference to create my character’s appearance would be the Heavy from the game Team Fortress 2. I used the facial feature of the stubble coming from the ears to the upper lip. I also reduced the ear size. I like the bald head of the Heavy and decided to make my character bald.

Even though the body is perfect for my character, the Heavy is large and looks menacing. He also looks like a big oaf which is something that I do not want. By cross-referencing to another character, Mr. Incredible from the film The Incredibles, I was able to make some adjustments to the body.

Mr. Incredible has a slightly protruding belly and has a more proportionate body than the Heavy. By using Mr. Incredible’s body as a reference, I decreased the size of the upper body and increased the size of the head. However, I also shrunk the lower body so that the upper body of the character will still be bigger than the lower body. I wanted by character to have short legs and long arms.

I wanted my character to have large hands and looked at the picture of the Incredible Hulk. The Hulk has a very muscular body and very large hands. The Hulk’s skeleton is proportionally correct but his muscles are very large, making him look wider. I did not want the width of The Hulk because it makes him look more frightening as I am aiming to create a comical character. I made my character’s arms thicker and hands larger.

Now my character looks more like a gorilla than a human and looks strong. However, I want my character to look smart as well. To look smart, one has to dress smart. I decided to dress my character in a suit with a tie. This reminds me of Agent 47 from the Hitman series. By looking at Agent 47’s clothing, I get the impression that he is a professional and does not go around randomly shooting people. I feel that people wearing suits look smarter and neater because of difficulty of maintaining the neatness of the attire.

By dressing my character in a suit with a tie, my character looks physically strong and intellectually smart. I just need to decide on the personality of the character. Since my character does odd jobs in a team and does a lot of jokes and gags, I researched on 2 anime characters.

The first anime character that I researched on was Kagura from Gintama. Kagura is a ridiculously strong China girl who works at an odd job business. Even though she is strong, she is not smart. Majority of the jokes and gags that she does are violent like smashing a monk’s head on the table during a funeral. This displays carelessness in the environment which is not something that I want in my character. My character is a responsible person that does funny jokes and gags without causing trouble for others.

The second anime character that I researched on was Switch from Sket Dance. Switch is a high school student who is in a club that helps solve problems of students. Switch is very knowledgeable about various things and usually makes jokes and gags. Even though he acts like a goof most of the time, he can be serious when the situation calls for it. This is the kind of personality I want my character to have but unlike Switch, I want my character to be serious majority of the time and suddenly come out with a funny joke. Switch is funny most of the time which is not something that I want. This gives me the impression that he is not serious most of the time. I feel that a comical character that is serious most of the time can make a funnier joke than a character that is always making jokes. 

Updated Character Design

Profile

Name: Dandy

Tagline: All muscles and all brains.

Attire: Black blazer with black pants and shoes with a white dress shirt and a tie

Job: Employee of Welfare Co.

Likes: Reading in a quiet environment, his teammates, ties

Dislikes: Snakes, touch screens

Backstory: Employed by Welfare Co., Dandy helps others while being pulled into crazed plans made by his leader.

Story

Dandy is employed in the branch of Welfare Corporation and is the third to join the team. Others employed in the branch are Black, Monkey and Chocolate Brown. Black is the leader of the branch and does majority of the planning for the jobs. Monkey is a skinny man who looks like a monkey and often acts as the straight man in the team’s gags. Chocolate Brown is an obese, dark-skinned computer wizard with an afro who supports the team from their office.

The team is eventually joined by two more members, Silverfang, a Welsh corgi, and Pierce, a blonde woman with a gangster attitude who worked as a CIA agent. The team does jobs requested by the general public in order to help them. The jobs range from clearing the gutters to helping at an expedition in the Amazon jungle to find a hidden temple.

History

Having a wealthy background caused Dandy to have the strongest body and the smartest mind. Due to his abilities, Dandy never asked people for help neither did other asked him for help. Over the years, Dandy’s became more distant socially and wealthier. Others only approached him for his money and Dandy never felt any connection with them.

One day, he went to a carwash and met Black. Black was helping out because there was a lack of manpower. When Dandy asked Black why is he helping out, Black replied with a simple reason. ‘They were asking for help.’ These words stayed with Dandy even after he joined Welfare Co. Being inspired by Black, Dandy uses his abilities to help others as much as he can.

Motivation

Even though Dandy has no particular reason to help others in need, it does not mean that he does not need to help them. Dandy follows the ideals of his leader, Black, and tries to make the world a better place together with his team.

Welfare Corporation

Welfare Corporation, or Welfare Co., is an international company that aims to help the general public. People in need can send a request to the company and the local branch tries to help fulfil the request to the best of the abilities. Payment is done after the job has been completed but the amount paid depends on the person who requested the job.

The company branches do not receive money from the company nor do the employees get paid from the company. The branch has to do the requested jobs in order to survive. Not doing any jobs meaning not getting paid.

Appearance

1) The most eye-catching about Dandy’s appearance is his body shape. Dandy has a large upper body with a protruding belly but a small lower body. His arms are long and large while his legs are small and short. Dandy’s arms are long enough that he does not need to bend over to touch his toes. His neck is thick and his chin can hardly be seen. Due to his size, Dandy cannot sit inside a car and has to ride in the open area of a truck. He also has problems entering air vents or small doors and windows.

2) The most interesting part of Dandy is his hands. His hands and fingers are so large that he can pick a person up by only using his index finger and thumb. His big hands allows him to do delicate tasks like dialling a phone number using a very small phone or holding chopsticks. However, Dandy has problems with touch screens.

3) His facial appearance consists of a bald head and stubble around his mouth. It is revealed that Dandy shaves every morning after washing his face.

4) A key visual of Dandy’s body is his feet. Even though his legs are short, the size of his feet is not proportional to the leg. His feet are slightly bigger and longer.

5) Dandy is always seen with wearing a tie around his neck unless he is in his sleep wear. The design of the tie changes, depending on his outfit. Dandy’s regular attire is a suit but he wears short-sleeved collar shirts so that he can wear a tie. Even after he has stripped off his shirt, Dandy still wears his tie around his neck.

Behaviour

1) Even though Dandy is very intelligent, he usually follows through with Black’s methods on handling the job. Black frequently comes up with ineffective methods to handle tasks but Dandy likes the methods because it is enjoyable. Dandy can come up with better methods but usually stays silent.

2) Dandy often does gags with Black, making the atmosphere funny. Most of the gags involve doing stupid things at certain moments. One example of a regular gag is Dandy having a serious face but makes a funny comment.

3) With small legs and a normal walking pace, Dandy does not walk any slower than a normal person. His posture while walking is relaxed but firm.

4) Dandy can become serious when the situations call for it. If an action of Black is going to cause the situation to worsen, Dandy will intervene with the best of his abilities.

5) With a superior intellect, Dandy often explains things that the other members do not know about. Dandy often does it when the group encounters something new.

6) Dandy is afraid of snakes due to almost being strangled to death by an anaconda in his youth. Even though he is terrified of them, he does not run away from them even when the snake is in front of his face but still makes a disgusted face.

7) Dandy often accidentally destroys things when surprised. When he was surprised while reading the Yellow Pages, he tore it in half. When he was drinking a cup of coffee, he obliterated the cup by closing his hands, causing the coffee to splash all over his shirt.

Skills

1) Dandy possesses great knowledge about the world and history. He is also an accomplished mathematician and scientist. Dandy often explains about the things that they have discovered and regularly poses as a teacher during infiltration jobs in schools. The immense intellectually ability of his is due to him graduating from the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institution of Technology.

2) Dandy possesses an unmeasurable hand grip due to him crushing the device. The device was designed to measure grip strength from 200kg and under. In his medical profile in the company’s database, his grip strength is filled as above 200kg.

3) Dandy is fluent in over 20 languages and is also able to communicate with animals. Silverfang was surprised that Dandy could understand him.

4) Even with large hands, Dandy is able to do tasks which require small and slender fingers like knitting. Dandy is also able to unlock locks with keys, eating with cutlery, type on a keyboard, dial a phone with buttons, writing with a pencil and adjust his tie.

Dialogue

1) Dandy with Black while being chased by a group of criminals:

• ·         Dandy: When you first explained it, I thought that it was a very good plan!
• ·         Black: Really?
• ·         Dandy: Yea really! You don’t come up with good plans often!
• ·         Black: Thanks! So what about now?
• ·         (Dandy and Black jump over a fence)
• ·         Dandy: It sucks badly!

2) Dandy eating with Silverfang:

• ·         Silverfang (animal dialogue): I’m still hungry after eating.
• ·         (Silverfang looks up at the ceiling)
• ·         Silverfang (animal dialogue): Is there anything to eat?
• ·         (Dandy gives Silverfang a sausage)
• ·         Silverfang (animal dialogue): A sausage!
• ·         (Silverfang eats the sausage hungrily)
• ·         Silverfang (animal dialogue): Thanks Big Man!
• ·         Dandy: You’re welcome.
• ·         (Silverfang looks at Dandy with a surprised face)

3) Dandy with Monkey and Black escaping via car:

• ·         Black: Hurry up the car is here!
• ·         (Car swerves to the side of the road and Silverfang brakes the car)
• ·         Silverfang: Woof! Woof!
• ·         Pierce: Come on! Get in!
• ·         (Pierce began shooting at the pursuers)
• ·         Black: Stop shooting at them!
• ·         (Black jumps into the car’s backseat via the backseat window)
• ·         Pierce: Tsk!
• ·         (Pierce stops shooting)
• ·         (Monkey jumps into the car’s backseat via the backseat window)
• ·         (Black looks at Dandy through the window)
• ·         Black: Dandy! Wait! Stop!
• ·         Monkey: Oh no! Stop!
• ·         (Dandy jumps into the car’s backseat via the backseat window)
• ·         (The car deforms and Black and Monkey are squashed into a corner)
• ·         Dandy: Go! Go! Go!
• ·         (Silverfang hits the accelerator and drives the car away)

Spiderman Weight Shift Exercise

The video is my Spiderman Weight Shift Exercise that I have done. In my animation, I have to add in anticipation, follow-through, secondary action and overshoot.

I feel that by adding those 4 principles of animation, I have made the animation more realistic and more interesting to watch. I used the weight shift video as my guide but added by own style into the animation to make it more unique.

The anticipation is where the hip moves quickly to the right before the weight is shifted to the left. This tells the audience that the hips are going to move to the left.

Follow-through happened after the weight has been shifted to the left. Even though the body stops moving, the hips continue to move to the left.

Secondary action is the legs of the character. While the hips are moving, the legs are rotated accordingly by using the knee joint control. This gives a more realistic movement of the hips because the legs are connected to the hips and should move with it.

Overshoot happens after the weight has been shifted to the left leg. The hips overshoots the stopping point but returns back to the position. This gives the impression of the hips settling down after moving.

In order to make a more realistic motion of the hips, I had to use the x, y and z of translation and rotation. In translation, I used the z to have the hips move back and forward while the hips were moving. The y is used to make a u-shaped path for the hips. Rotation is the most important as it tells that the hips shifted the weight from the right leg to the left leg.

1 of the problems that I face was using the graph to adjust the speed and motion of the hips. I have to time all 3 axis or else the timing of the animation will be off. By using the graph, I was able to improve the animation rather than depending on the key poses and location of the set keys.

From this exercise, I have learned to apply the different principles of animation. Even though the animation principles are separate, some of them come naturally together. I have also learned to break down the animating process into simpler steps in order to create the animation better rather than doing it by trial and error and redoing the animation over and over again.

Character Design Sketches

 The image to the right is the initial sketch of the character Dandy. He has a large upper body but a smaller lower body. The hands are almost touching the floor and has a small head. The hands are gigantic, being able to cover the head with one hand.

The upper body is far too large for the lower body, making the legs very small. This is not I wanted because this will cause Dandy to have walking problems. The head is also far too small, making him look like an idiot. The overall look tells me that he is unintelligent but has a lot of strength. This is not what I wanted becaue Dandy is both smart and strong.

The picture to the right shows the side view of the character. From this view, one can see that he has a slightly protruding stomach. The size of the head is now bigger but the arms are shorter. The length of the feet is long enough that Dandy is able to see his feet without sucking in his belly.

With a protruding belly, Dandy does not seem as scary as before. I feel that the arms should be longer because the elbow joint is too high and should be lowered.

In this picture, this is the final front view of the character. The size of the head has been adjusted, the size of his upper body has been decreased. His arms are longer and his finger touches the ground. The character's legs are still short but looks better with the adjusted body. A slightly curve has been added to the waist area to show the protruding stomach.

Dandy does not look as scary as before and looks more like a comedic character. Even though his fingers touch the ground, it is not a problem. The most important thing about the character's appearance is the big hands, small lower body and a comedic look.

 The first pose of the character is sitting on a chair, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. The important aspect of the pose is how he holds the items. Due to his large hands, Dandy only needs to use his index finger and thumb in order to hold the cup.

The chair has shorter legs because the character's legs are short. If he sat on a normal chair, his legs will be dangling in the air.

 The second pose of the character is running away in panic. The angle of the picture is looking down like the sun at 4pm in the afternoon. Dandy is swinging his arms quickly while running. His back is arced such that his chest is pointing upwards.

Since the chest is pointing upwards, his head is thrown backwards while his legs are running near the front. The transfer of energy is a curve which goes from the character's foot to the spine which moves to the head.

 This is a stationary pose of the character posing. This is one of the gags that the team does. The gag is a flashy introduction of the team, with each member doing a pose like a super hero and this is Dandy's pose. The weight of the character is on the right foot.

 This is another stationary pose of the character posing like a gorilla. Due to the body of Dandy, his body resembles more of a gorilla than a human. He was told to bend over and have his hands touch the floor like a gorilla. Dandy only bends over slightly and his hands already touches the floor. The weight of the character is distributed between and hands and feet.

 This pose is of the character trying to jump into the window of a car. The pose shows that he intends to enter the window legs-first. The position of the right hand shows that he was running or moving quickly before jumping. It is also noted that the character used his left leg to jump because the right leg is straight and is used to aim for the window.
 






This pose is a stationary pose of the character doing a gag. The character has slightly bent knees and the elbows are at 90 degrees. The upper body, lower body and legs are facing to the right while the arms and head are facing to the left. The character could have twisted his upper body, lower body and legs to do this pose.

The gag consists of the character twisting his body in order to get the pose.




The pose is of the character inspecting something small. The character only uses his index finger and thumb because the object is too small to be held in the entire hand. Holding with only using the index finger and thumb greatly implies that he is inspecting something.

The right leg is also forward because the entire body is leaning forward. Instead of bring the object closer to the eyes, the character chose to move his head closer to the object.

 This pose is of the character shrugging his shoulders. With raised shoulders and arms out, this shows that the character does not know the anwser. The direction of the character's face is probably where the person asking him the question is at. He wants to make sure that the person asking the question is seeing the gesture as it is the character's answer.

This pose is of the character walking with his head high in the air. His left hand is adjusting his tie and is walking with his right foot out. The weight of the character rests on the left foot.

A character walking with a head held up high shows that he is happy and is looking at the sky. Unlike prideful characters who walk with their heads up, Dandy is walking normally. Pridefull characters tend to take smaller steps with their heads up high.



The final pose is a stationary pose of the character having a depressed-like feeling. This feeling is like doing something with a lot of effort to get a result while another hardly does anything and gets the same result.

The character stands in a straight pose with no life in his body. The raised head can be seen as looking into the sky. This shows what the character is thinking. He is thinking that he doesn't care about anything anymore and simply stands there stunned.




I learn from the work that body expressions can be used to convey messages across. That are a lot of body movements that is used to express the character's thoughs and actions that I did not notice. Even the smallest of gestures like raising the head can tell the audience something. However, body movement can have different meanings when combined with other body movements, creating a totally different body expression. One must be careful to take note of the simplest of details in order to accurately convey the message across as it can greatly affect the expression.

Week 4 rigging

1 of the problems that I have with rigging is the finger bones. The hands of the models were not faced down and the fingers are slightly curved. Due to these reasons I had problems with the fingers. When I had to Joint Orient the fingers, the axis are pointing all over the place. This made the finger curl look like worms rather than fingers.

The 2nd problem is the arms and shoulders. The shoulder joint is actually very flexible as it allows 360 degree of rotation. However, the skin around the shoulder gets twisted badly if I try to move the arms around too much. I try to resolve this by using the shoulder control but there is a limit to this. I feel that I should have done the shoulder control better as to prevent problems like this.

The next problem is the spine. I do not think that I have arrange the spine bones properly for the spine control. Since there was only 1 spine control, I should not have made the spine so curved.

The final problem that I had is the distribution of the weight of the skin. The problems I had on the skin was the breast area, elbow area and knee area.

The problems I had with the breasts was to retain its shape as the spine bends. I did this by giving complete control of the breast area to the 3rd spine bone while the 4th spine bone was only given control on the area slightly above the breasts.

For the elbows and knees, I had to make them bend realistically. I group the area at the elbow to the lower arm while the area at the knee is with the calf. I had to study how the muscles move in order to make the skin on the model bend as accurately as possible.

I successful did the ball lift and toe lift and used them in my poses. However, I feel that I could improve on areas like the weight distributions on the skin and rigging the shoulder control better. I should also improve the elbow control since I have problems with the pole vector of the elbow.