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.