Fall 03 "Finished"

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

Despite being pretty happy with the blocking stage I encountered numerous problems when splining the animation, this has caused myself to get to this stage later than I had hoped to. One of the issues was the fall which when splined caused a lot of issues with the rig, because of this I had to recreate the fall but I was splining it from the start because I feared running into anymore problems again.

It sadly wasn't until I splined it that I found out this rig has quite a few issues with the feet, which meant I had to go frame by frame for the whole animation and tweak it all. What happened was when I moved the main body the feet would ever so slightly move which caused it to look somewhat jittery.

I feel as if I could spend AT LEAST a few more days on this, but I wish to get on with a few more tests that will aid me in the project. Despite the issues with this test I'm still happy I've given it an attempt, and when I come to the final piece it will have been a huge help at knowing what problems I could potentially come to.

Latest Animatic

Here's the very latest animatic for the film! It's quite literally hot off the press.

Please bear in mind the camera positions aren't at all final yet!

Fall 02

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Here's the very latest playblast!

I'm still pretty happy with it so far, but more tweaks will be made before going into the spline/polish stage which depending on how I've animated it all so far could be the hardest part to get looking right. Aside from that I think I'm slowly getting there.

I'll hopefully get an update on here soon enough!

Fall 01

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Here's the blocking out for the animation so far. I must admit I'm really happy at the moment! I feel as of now everything seems to be in order, but as I get further along in the blocking stage I will be adding more and more such rotating the body of the egg to demonstrate the weight, along with a bit of squash and stretch added in the polishing stage.

Reference

Walk cycle test 01

To prepare and help myself for the "fall test" I've decided to create a walk cycle test to get me into the mood of how the character will walk. So far the blocking stage appears to be fine, and it's looking (as of now) that I won't encounter any problems.

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

For the walk cycle I wanted a very baby-like persona to the way the egg walks.

Run 03 "Finished"

Playblast

Side view

QUICKTIME: Playblast: Side view

Angled view

QUICKTIME: Playblast: Angled view

Notes

I feel this test has been accomplished and has been a good way to start getting back into animating, but I will most definitely change the way the character moves in the final animation. This is because I feel after viewing it there's not enough character present, despite changing it a bit compared to a standard run cycle.

The lightness I wanted to achieve is present, but maybe not added as much as I could've done. A thing I do like however is the way the chick propels itself into the air a bit more than a standard run cycle, this is due to the weight of the chick and also because it is somewhat attempting to fly without having the ability to use its wings.

Run 02

Playblast

QUICKTIME: Playblast

Notes

I've tweaked a few things here and there, especially the way the body/head are leaning forward. Along with this I've added more in-betweens to the animation which has given myself a taste of what will be happening in the polished version. As of now there is not enough weight as the character is coming down, nor do I feel he's in the air long enough. Both of which I'll amend.