In the animation suite this week I was doing the push and pull exercises along with my first attempts at sneaking around and the run and jump exercise to see how hard they would be to perform and hope it will aid in my maya animations. I began with the pushing and pulling realising this could possibly be the hardest task. The difficult aspect of this task would be the wall as we weren't allowed to use props. Thankfully there was an easy solution mark a small line in the stage and hold the hands over it for the pushing motion and for pulling back on the hand rail. The movements were followed from both the bar sheet and reference footage but as Johny said it was a good idea to exaggerate the movements a little.
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| pulling bar sheet. |
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| pushing stopmotion bar sheet. |
One example would be the head of the armature moving side to side like he was yelling out in anger. I tried to capture some feet movements in the pulling and pushing. These were then rendered and saved to my pen drive and I then moved to the sneaking around animation.
Pulling animation
Pushing animation
Pulling and pushing together
Sneaking reference footage.
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| Sneaking around animation bar sheet. |
The sneaking animation task was a very challenging aspect, I felt that this required small movements in the feet and movements in the hips. This required small leg movements when in motion and upon the foot reaching the contact point I had the foot pointing downwards as it touched the floor. I had the character pose for a short moment to look around to make sure he wasn't being followed by anyone. This needed movements in the hips and shoulders to show he was looking. The next few sneaking steps near the end of the animation were getting slightly shorter as it neared the edge of the frame.
The final pose was originally going to be the character looking at the camera, but being the acting genius that I am I had him in a scared pose to show he was scared by something possibly a ghost. This I felt was a good effect to add to show a story behind the animation.
Upon completion I moved to what could be the most challenging the run and jump. The idea being that the character would run and then jump in the middle only to land at the other end of the screen. I hadn't yet mastered running in stopmotion so I realised this wasn't going to be a smooth animation. However ,never the less, I proceeded in doing the animation.
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| run and jump bar sheet. |
I felt it was a good idea to study the reference footage along with the bar sheet I produced to get an idea of movement within the action and the timing. There were from what I could tell in the reference footage about three steps before the jump and I recorded this in the motions along with the anticipation of the jump. I was starting to feel tired and overheated due to the lamps in the room and my point of exhaustion, and I was beginning to think it was having an impact on the animation. The jump wasn't very large and even using the rig, but I was following the reference video for guidance. Capturing the landing and contact point was relatively hard given the rig would move at inopportune moments such as in an arial point in the jump or reaching for the landing.
However once the jump was complete the hold position which was the rig standing up straight was finished and so the animation was saved and rendered. I felt relived that I was able to do three animations within an afternoon more than I can produce two books in a day.
Run and jump with rigs
Run and jump without rigs
Looking back on this session there are a few things that I would change or do differently. I would possibly consider doing a second run and jump animation piece so that I could try to improve on the jump and exaggerate the height. Another element would be the running as it didn't look very realistic or fast in presentation and the contact points seemed too far apart. In hindsight I should've looked at how running was done in Maya to see how it could affect the stop motion or see how the other students possibly approached the exercise in terms of running. I think the issue was looking at the reference footage too much instead of exagurating things a little as Johny advised. Looking back I would think this was good approach to my exercises and I hope that the feedback given to me will help better refine my animation approach.
In future I shall ask for advice from the tutors to see how best to approach running in stopmotion animation as it could be of use. I shall also try not to take too much of the reference footage into the animation and focus on what I put down on the bar sheet, though I will look back on it occasionally to get a grasp of the in-betweens and extreme frames.
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