Walk Cycle Test - 2D

Here's my 1st Walk Cycle Test:

Keys, Extremes, In Betweens

Keys: They are the major story telling drawings.
NOTE: While animating, figure out the keys first & place/draw them.

Extremes: As defined, earlier (http://animatoralmanac.blogspot.com/2011/11/timing-spacing.html), it is the position where-ever there is a change of direction or when we start/end an action.

Keys can be Extremes. Extremes cannot be Keys.

NOTE: After figuring out Keys, place/draw Extremes followed by In Betweens.

TIming & Spacing

Timing & Spacing are two most important things in animation which are closely linked with one another.

How I understand, based on Richard Williams' book (Animator's Survival Kit)

Timing can be defined as the part of the animation, where the drawing/CG denotes any particular action where as Spacing can be considered as the distance between the two drawings in that particular action.

Example:

"Spacing Is The Tricky Part. Good animation spacing is a rare commodity" - Richard Williams, Animator's Survival Kit.

Note: DO The Timing first. Then figure out your keys,extremes,in betweens etc.

Extremes: It is the position in the chart where-ever there is a change of direction or when we start/end an action.

Arcs & Straight Line:

• Arcs: They are beautiful to watch, gives a fluid movement.
• Straight Lines: They denote power.

RedBull Canimation

After the Tutorial with Charles on Thursday (03/11/2011) , here's the model I built for the competition along with texture and few test Blend shapes..

These are the Front, Side & Back View of the Redbull Can.

I used  Blinn Material (because metal cans are shiny) and applied the texture file in the color option.

Here's the image for several blend shapes.

The one in the centre is the base model of the can.

File Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?dorwttd94ms4ccf

Study of Movement (In Humans)

While working on Leoni's assignment on a Descriptive Journey, I unknowingly did a little bit of research on Movement in Humans.

In the following video, Thanos & me are the subjects, where we've walked & run using different speeds, resulting in a quite extensive collection of images which shows frame by frame movement progression. In this, I also requested a skateboarder to skate in front of the camera & got frame by frame images of him skateboarding in front of the camera. Its just so very amazing to know that even a simple task of walking or running leads to the complete movement in the body. No single person walks similar, unless of course if you see a troop of defense personnel marching around.

I would like to thank Thanos for being so patient & helping me out with this.


The video:

Basic Principles Of Animation

Ollie Johnson & Frank Thomas (Disney Animators) in their book "The Illusion Of Life: Disney Animation" - 1981, introduced 12 Basic Principles of Animation.

These principles were:

• Stretch & Squash
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Slow In & Slow Out (Ease In & Ease Out)
• Pose To Pose
• Overlapping Action & Follow Through
• Arcs
• Secondary Action
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid Drawing
• Appeal 

The main purpose of these principls was to create an illusion of characters adhering to the basic laws of Physics. Not only that, they were also created to deal with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing & character appeal.