Obstacle Course

The final task is to take what we have learned about movement and animating with the effects of gravity, and make an animation of a figure running an obstacle course. For this, a fair amount of reference was needed.

My final animation for this project, the obstacle course, is shown below;

Interacting with Heavy Objects

Very often, an animated character will have to interact with a heavy object; and when this happens, the animation must convince the audience of the force of gravity on the object and the character's struggle, otherwise the audience will not feel strongly for the action.

Our first task in this area was to animate a character lifting a heavy box. As reference I took multiple shot photos of my friend lifting a heavy box to get a feel for the struggle and body shapes during the struggle.

From that reference I made an animation of a wire-frame figure lifting a box, carrying it two steps, then placing it down again. I am pleased with how this one came out as I think it effectively shows that the box is heavy and that the figure is struggling with it.

After the box lifting, the next task was to animate a figure pushing a heavy box. My reference for this was also of one of my class mates

Using this as a guide, I animated a stick figure pushing a heavy box; this animation is below. I am pleased with how this came out as I believe the audience can get a real feel for the weight of the box and the stick figure's struggle to push it.

After pushing a heavy box, we had to animate a stick figure pulling a heavy box. Again, my reference for this came from one of my classmates, although I did find myself trailing off from the reference.

My actual animation for the box pulling is shown below:

I feel with this one, as with the other two box animations, the weight of the box and the figure's struggle is evident to the audience.

Dog Run Cycle

After animating a dog walking, the next step was to animate a dog running. Like with the walk cycle, before animating anything you have to collect visual research. I used the videos below; the first one is very useful as the dogs are running in slow motion.

I decided to do the run cycle as a more anatomical drawing because it's easier to get the movements right, which is the most important part. My first attempt looked like this:

However, the rib cage was too static, but I am happy with the leg movements and the squash and stretch. So I altered animation;

As with the walk cycles, the next challenge is to make the dog start running from a stand still, then to slow down to a stand still again. There's not a huge amount of research out there for this part but I did find a very helpful video on youtube of a dog who starts and stops running multiple times, from several different angles. It gave me enough information that I was able to figure out how a dog places it feet and applies force to counteract the weight of its body for stopping, as well as how it applies force in its back legs to be able to jump into a run.

I was then able to use the knowledge I gained to create my final run cycle, with which I am very proud of how it turned out as I believe I have captured the movements and weight shifting effectively.

When animating the movements of animals, it is important to look at the anatomy of the animal. Since a body can only move at the joints it is vital to know where those joints are; the joints and skeletal structure is virtually the same for most quadruped animals.

Dog Walk Cycle

The first task in our advanced animation skills workshop is the dog walk cycle.

The best way to start is to either observe from life how a dog walks, or if you don't have a dog available, there is a large amount of online data. For my first walk cycle is looked at a video provided on the animation net, which shows a series of different dogs walking at various gaits.

My first attempt at the dog walk cycle wasn't great as the back legs and front legs were a bit out of time to each other. However I think this is partly because the dog I was focusing on was very fluffy so a lot of what i drew was guess work.

So I decided to look at some videos of dogs which were less fluffy, making it easier to see the movements in their anatomy.

And I also used the tips in The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams on colour-coding the points where the legs are rising, crossing over and contacting the ground.

And then created a walk cycle like this;

The next challenge was then to animate it so that the dog went from standing still, to walking, then slowing to standing still again. So with that, this is my final walk cycle.