Summer 2023 Animation Work
22/07/2023 🙂
After a long deserved rest I adventure myself back into the animation realm but first a quick warm up walk cycle which I decided to use from https://agora.community/content/mario, upon opening the character rig in Maya the controls seemed reasonable easy to work with and move around.
Upon inspecting the character rig worked properly I moved on to searching a walk cycle that would suit Mario so I searched on YouTube "Mario walk cycle" and chose a video reference from Callum Angel, using this walk cycle reference I started animating it but midway the process I noticed it was plain and simple so I animated the eyes and moustache to give it more life.
I was planning to continue adding more features and touches to this animation but my lack of motivation kicked in making me close my computer and proceeded to sleep calling it a day.
25/07/2023 😯
At last my motivation for animating came back after going through Tik Tok the night before going bed I saw these amazing kicks the woman on the video was displaying and I was saying to myself "I must animate this immediately" so I went bed but couldn't sleep of the excitement on doing this animation.
Early morning woke up and rushed to my computer to look for a rig to use for this animation, luckily I had the perfect rig for this occasion which I have been putting in hold, a Goku rig from Dragon Ball a franchise I'm attached to since childhood. I have always wanted to animate a Dragon Ball character since I originally mainly drew them on A1 paper.
26/07/2023 😞
Another day, another kick animation but in this case with another rig from a videogame called "League of Legends" my inspiration hadn't run out yet so I went and found myself this character rig to continue animation kicks from this lady I found on Tik Tok. Its a shame that near the end of this animation I realised that the character rig clothes could be change for example the coat she's wearing I was able to change it to a normal shirt so the pose could be more visible, just why did I have to find out last minute, I guess I was blinded when fully concentrated on the animation.
Animating the coat took more hours than the entire animation since It keep looking out of place.
08/09/2023 ✈️
Oh my it has been a while hasn't, well the entire month of August I went to Spain for holidays and since I knew my laptop wouldn't survive the Spanish warm weather I left at home just to make sure it doesn't stop working, also I could not find a rig that would suit a spin kicking I had seeing and wanted to try animating it. Luckily on the 1st of August the Agora community dropped new character rigs to play with Alpha and Beta, Alpha was the rig I was looking for but the rig it self was on IK and I normally work with FK I still gave it a try animating this kick with this rig. In the end looks good and all but the hands not so good they look stiff to me.
10/09/2023 🍴
For two days I focused on my chosen animation sector which is film so I had looked at a Toy Story 4 clip when Woody and Forky where walking down a road back to their owner, I found Forky's walk animation very hilarious which made me animated it with a rig of Forky himself, referencing his walk cycle and adding some facial expressions while walking which was not part of the clip. I loved animating the little jumps he makes when walking and his eyes going crazy right to left.
I gave it a try with lighting/rendering to see how this rig would look on a render view and it looks like the mouth didn't want to cooperate, also the ground I choose for this render was a bad decision but my main focus was the characters body mechanics.
03/10/2023 🤺
This walk cycle took longer than I expected to be, I want it to improve more on my walk cycles and the lighting/rendering since looking back at previous work that was an area I was lacking at so what I did throughout most of September which was focusing on this one walk cycle and trying to smooth it/improve upon it each day till this day.
Most of the time spend went on adjusting the feet and arms of the character since I was working again in IK instead of FK making a bit harder for me but in the end I managed to create this wonderful walk cycle that I'm very proud of.
09/10/2023 🎉
"Create a character-showreel" as part of my "educational" objectives I created this showreel of my work so far with the character rigs I have used making a total of 6 different character rigs another objective completed " Animate with 5 different rigs"
20/10/2023
After having feedback on my summer work reel and looking back once again at my own work it made me realize I was heading towards the game industry instead the film industry, this reflected on the walk animations and shots I have done so far over the summer, so as a test animation I decided to animate the Zelda rig using an in game attack animation from the game Genshin Impact.
Half way the making of this animation using the references I encounter some problems such as the rig unable to do the full spin kick that is shown at the end of the attack pattern and also I wasn't longer working in shots instead as a sequence animation which is not my main concern, so I left this animation to the side to work on another animation using another rig as part of my objectives to work with at least 5 or more character rigs.
24/10/2023
Today I have encounter one the best rigs I have seen so far and its Rayman himself created by Jordanimate which I found in Gumroad when searching for the next character rig I can use to animate with.
Rayman was one the many games I played throughout my childhood specially "Rayman Revolution" that was my first time I had ever encounter this character when I had my PlayStation 2.
Well going back to the main topic I just had to get this rig to animate with so as starters I try posing the rig to his unique pose, the controls were rather easy to control and had more freedom since Rayman had no limbs that restricted his movements giving me ideas for some animations .
19/11/2023
Today I wasn't expecting to complete this animation to a certain level from blocking to spline after focusing on the reference from Rayman Legends, my main idea behind this animation was to covert this 2D charged attack into a 3D animation version at the same time understanding the animation style to see if I could recreate it into the 3D realm. Down below it shows all the time and steps I have taken to complete this animation throughout today, I have never felt really focused on completing an animation before like today.
Blocking "Punch Animation" : Time Taken 4 hours
Spline "Punch Animation" : Time Taken 3 hours
20/11/2023
Today Objectives
- Polish charged attack animation
- Don't forget to record time length taken
- Take breaks
- Do not get distracted
- Eat lunch at exactly 3pm
Polished "Punch Animation" : Time Taken 2 hours
27/11/2023
After the feedback I was given from my previous Rayman animation I needed to create my own original attack animation this character hasn't done before to expand my creativity and animation so for todays objectives are as follow:
- Research video reference
- Block animation
- Spline animation
- Polished animation
- Must annotate the time taken for each step
- Take breaks
- Eat at 3pm
Blocking "Rayman Run Spin Attack" : Time Taken 2 Hours
Spline "Rayman Run Spin Attack" : Time Taken 3 Hours
Polished "Rayman Run Spin Attack " : Time Taken 4 Hours 25 Mins
01/12/2023
https://dillongoo.gumroad.com/l/emily-anime-rig?layout=discover&recommended_by=discover&_gl=1*q9bcx6*_ga*MTM2Mzg4MTA0Mi4xNzAxNzgzMzIw*_ga_6LJN6D94N6*MTcwOTQ5NDUyNS40Ni4xLjE3MDk0OTQ1NDMuMC4wLjA.
Today I wanted to introduce a new objective to my "education objectives" which is learning how to use Blender a new animation software I will focusing more after I graduate since Maya won't be free to use afterwards, that made me realize I need to growth my knowledge and understanding of Blende, also because I saw a beautiful rig from Dillongoo in Gumroad which was for Blender so I bought this rig and dive myself into a new software realm.
Without seeing any tutorials I tried to check for myself if Blender was similar to Maya in terms of moving around rotating etc.. overall the basics and I was very wrong, I had felt so lost just like my first time when I first used Maya, Blender had so many controls and sections that needed to be learned so before I used the brand new rig I bought I looked up a quick basic tutorial on how to use Blender.
Minutes in the tutorial I gave a try and animated simple animations with the rig which was still a better outcome when I used Maya for the first time where I couldn't even move a cube from its place, afterwards I was lost again "how do I playblast my animations??" time to go back to YouTube to find the answer "how to playblast in Blender" I'm going to deep deeper on tutorials regarding Blender after I graduate since I will be using it as my main source of animation software.
First two Blender animations
02/12/2023
Todays animation plan is to create an idle animation for Rayman by looking back at previous idle animation he has had over the years I will try create my own idle animation for him.
Blocking "Idle Rayman Animation" : Time Taken 20 mins
Spline "Idle Rayman Animation" : Time Taken 2 Hours
Blocking "New, Idle Rayman Animation" : Time Taken 1 hour 20 mins
My own idle animation didn't go as planned so I switched it up and created a fighting stance for him while also shooting some reference for an attack that will shortly follow after the stance, combining all these shots to create a single animation.
Primary reference video ideas for when the character attacks from idle animation, a barrage of punches and a charge upper cut
Blocking "Combined Reference Animation" : Time Taken 1 Hour 36 mins
Spline "Combined Reference Animation" : Time Taken 2 Hours 27 mins
Decided to reduce the amount of reference footage to keep the animation short and simple to follow or else it would become a sequence animation, I must focus on shots only.
Polished "Combined Reference Animation" : Time Taken 4 Hours 46 mins
Further Polished "Combined Reference Animation" : Time Taken 2 Hours 15 mins
In order to create the illusion of multiple punches appearing on screen I replicated both hands several times leading to this illusion
I had to speed up the punch section of the animation since at first glance it was very slow and didn't give that much impact to me
Speed up "Combined Reference Animation"
03/12/2023
During my lesson regarding smear effects on an animation it gave me an incredible idea to include them on the run and hit animation I did with the Rayman rig but before that I need to understand more the concept of a smear effect and how cool they look on an animation.
Down below you can see my first attempt at including smear effects on this animation
Further Polished "Rayman Run Spin Attack " : Time Taken 3 Hours
07/12/2023
Below are two final render versions of my polished animation one had too much toon line shading which I had to reduce and made a better look on the second version.
Further Polished "Rayman Run Spin Attack " : Render Time 1 Hour
Looking back at it I realized the feet and hands mainly went towards where the camera was, making it look weird when I rotate a camera around it whoops
"Rayman Run Spin Attack, Turn Around Showcase"
10/12/2023
Second attempt at creating a professional show-reel of my work as part of my education objectives
Work Test Showreel #2
26/12/2023
For today's objectives I will be focusing on studying this rig, understanding how many controls it has and posing it to a reference picture I had in mind.
This character rig was my option as the main lead for my FMP but after receiving feedback regarding the characters I had chosen for my FMP they didn't meet the expectations therefore I will focus on working with this rig to prove it will be a major hit for my FMP.
04/01/2024
Time to gather some reference before animating so I went out and went all out on the ideas I had on mind regarding the animations the character could have
Idle animation reference
Jump attack reference
Anticipation for forward attack reference
Punch attack reference
Idle blocking 1h 30min
Idle spline 2h 36min
Hair spline animation 2h
After working and playing around with this rig for the whole day I came to a realisation that if I were truly going to use this character for my FMP I would be struggling on completing most of the animations that would come along to complete everything not only that I will have to think of the collaborations, assets, sound effects and more making it impossible to complete it by the given deadline.
I had fun working with a rig that had multiple controls but having multiple controls on the clothing made it not fun, I guess it's time to continue my search for a more appropriate rig with less controls and game ready, that way I can start exploring unreal engine making this a brand new objective.
