The Basic Walk

For the last project of the class, I animated the full rig of Buggy in a basic walk from one platform to another, starting and ending in a resting pose. At the end of second platform, was a red button - Buggy needed to press this button. All of the previous techniques we learned had to be present in the animation. However, there was emphasis on certain ones such as the curve progression on the COG and spine joints, as well as silhouette. I also made good use of traditional animation elements which included, slow in/slow out, follow-through, squash and stretch, and anticipation. 

How am I going to approach this?

I started off by blocking my key poses: first came the contacts, then the passing, and the the up and down poses. Afterwards, I added the blockouts of the turnaround and the button press. After making sure those were all looking correct, I tweaked the arm swings during each pose (I particularly found this part to be the most difficult/tedious). Once that was done, I added the blockouts for the anticipation for both the transition from resting to walking, and the button press. During this time, I tried to get in as many critiques as possible to make sure the foundation of my animation was strong. After fixing some issues I overlooked regarding curve progression in the spine joints, I switched my tangents in the Graph Editor from Stepped to Auto, and began working on the foot roll. It was during this part of the project that I came to truly understand the Graph Editor (which made me very pleased with my rate of growth in the 3D animation world).

The eyes are very important for conveying the characters emotions/intent.

After my animation was close to complete, I went back and added follow-through elements to things like the hands and antennae. I also added a blink to the character and he anticipates to press the button. Afterwards, I got a couple more critiques and made all the changes that were suggested to me. I was very excited to know that I was doing well with my animation and time management. Here's a look at my final submission for the last project.

And with that, my last stretch of Computer Animation was over. I have to say though, this class really made me consider putting more attention to animation over modeling. I learned so much more about Maya, animation and even how people's bodies react to certain movements from this class. As a student in Game Art, I hope this isn't the last of animation for me.

PS: I will be adding some posts of what I did in previous classes. :)