3DPF Project 2 Mani Walk Part 2 Stepping Up And Jumping Off A Box Walk Cycle

Video of Mani Stepping Up And Jumping Off A Box 

Thoughts about attempting this project 

For the second part of this assignment, I have 2 choices to picked 1. A walk cycle with emotions or 2. A step up on a box and then jumping off it. I chosen to do the stepping up on a box and jumping off it as I wanted to try something different from a walk cycle. Before I began, I went to research and Google for videos that will help me better understand how Mani can jump off a box. I found one which is a walking of steps however to me, it is the closest one that i can find, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umO4nE5-Hog which I use to visualize how mani will walk up the box and then afterwards for the jumping part, I decide to experiment and test out how does one actually when he or she jumps off a platform/box. 

Reflections

I think that for this video, I make a few mistakes here and there such as the distance between the feet and the box should be wider when Mani takes a step forward thus in one part of the video, I  position one of the legs in a weird angle as i was afraid that the legs might look as thought it is touching the box. The jumping position that i position Mani also looks rather stiff as although the arms is spread out to help it balance its jump and preventing it from falling over, the back is straight and unnatural .The spine also needs to be more arched when it is stepping up on the box because only robots have a straight spine when they are stepping up unlike us humans who need to arch our back to keep our balance. Overall, I enjoy animating this character as although there were many difficulties i encountered, i enjoyed the process of when i complete my animation and see it being 80-90% as accurate and close to the ideal walk cycle i have in my mind. I am confident that given more time to practice, I will be even better at animation then now(I am a rookie now).

3DPF Project 2 Mani Walk Part 1 Standard Walk Cycle

For Project 2 Assignment, I was tasked to do 2 animations with the Mani Rig provided by my lecturer.

 First of the animation which is required of me(& everyone else) to do is a standard walk cycle whereas the second one can be a walk cycle of emotions such as happy,angry walk or to animate Mani stepping onto a box and jumping of it. For this blog entry, I decide to talk about the standard walk cycle first.

Before doing the actual Mani standard walk cycle, I first went to "research" and seek tips on how others do their walk cycle.[links of the walk cycle will be listed at bottom of this post]. From the videos, I observed that for a walk cycle to be good, it consist of three parts which is firstly the body. The body needs to be moving a little(rotation of the pelvis and shoulders) otherwise it will look as thought it is a robot walking and not how a human being should walked. Secondly, the arms and lastly the legs. The arms and legs need to move in sync.Armed with this information, I set off to start on my animation. 

This is the first video walk cycle which I did.

2nd attempt of  Mani Walk[Standard Walk Cycle after third attempt]

Reflections

For my first Mani walk video, I didn't move the hips of Mani thus it looks like he is marching and also the hands of Mani doesn't look anything like how a normal person swing his arms.

For the second Mani walk video, I like to believe that I have at least grasp the basic of a good walk cycle which is 1. when the legs move forward, Mani's ankle/heel is supposed to be lifted up. 2. Moving the thorax allows the shoulders to be move further which gives an impression that the shoulders are moving in the direction of Mani's moving hand direction.3. Moving the pelvis will create the impression that the hips are shaking and moving with the legs as well as allowing the the legs to stretch further.4.When the leg is moving backwards, the ankle/heel  should be facing the ground.

In conclusion, this mani walk has let me learn a lot from this walk cycle assignment which is that it isn't easy to animate a character moving thus it is even harder animating the same character jumping,siting down or running. To ensure that your animation runs smooth, other than researching on how others animate their walk cycle, you also have to visualize and sometime experiment in this case I repeatedly walk up and down my house to better visualize and think about how i want to go about doing this walk cycle. 

Video Links that I referred to 

11.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVnMft4c20 [Cartoon Walk Cycle By Chris Rasch)

2

22.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOyqaNvlHls [Cartoon Walk  Cycle By oOdubOo)

3

23.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZvw9ab-Vs [Cartoon  Walk  Cycle By Peter A. Montgomery]