I'm working on the last character for "Shot 24" in my student film, Swing. This thing has taken quite a long time as I've been trying to work on it while also working fulltime at EALA. I'm lucky if I get to work on it for a few hours each day. But slowly it's getting finished! After this shot, I'll have about 5 more to go. Two of them are quite long, though, and involve all 3 characters, so I'm expecting to spend a lot of time on those two. On the positive side, the remaining shots are super easy!
So, Shot 24 happens right after Mack (the guy on the left) has shown off his "mad skillz" by throwing a rubber ball through two hoops (swish!). Now it's Hayley's turn. However Hayley has a broken arm, so she has to resort to... inventive methods.
This shot is pretty far along, I have most of the breakdowns in place already for the center character. You'll notice I work with stepped tangents, I find it closest to traditional animation and helps me maintain strong poses throughout the animation. But after I get the keys and basic timing down, I start doing breakdowns one limb at a time, to focus on arcs. That's when the dope sheet starts getting messy, because I add breakdowns based on what I feel the appropriate timing is for each arc. Don't want all the parts to move at exactly the same time, that would look rather silly! However it is still easy to see my main key poses, since when I hit "Select All" I can see which frame has a key for every body part.
It's interesting hearing how other people work. There seems to be no single definitive method of animating. How do you begin an animation?
I did video reference footage for one of the characters in this shot, complete with props... can you guess which? :)
4 comments:
hey, the animation has pretty good timing. Just make sure in the end there is some sort of bend/impact with the tail when it hits the ball.
at the moment the tail looks like it's as hard as a bat! i think i needs to look more organic.. Not too sure how hard that will be to do in 3d since I'm studying 2d.. ^^;;
Well.. goodluck with finishing this!
Hi Druie, thanks for the comments!
Yeah, I forgot to mention, I animate secondary action last, since I have to figure out what my primary action is first. So the tail and floppy ears are the very last things I animate. That goes for both my 3d and 2d animation, it's easiest to do things like capes, tails, hair, etc. after I know how the body is moving, that way I can make them whip around based on what the body does!
But yeah, it will definitely be a challenge to get the tail to have some impact with the ball. Just like you said, right now it looks like a solid bat! How can I make it look both fluid like a tail, yet powerful enough to hit the ball? I'm thinking maybe something like a whip? Is there anywhere I could find video reference? Maybe Indiana Jones...
HEY!! That's real cool!! do you have more?! HE ! HE!! Miss seeing your animation!
The middle one is very choppy lol. Other than that, good job!
Steve
www.stephenstudios.com
Post a Comment