Animation plan continued

Taking a closer look into what animation I want to do in my show reel, I have chosen to do game animation using the mannequin rig to help me achieve this. The chosen genre themed around my animation is beat-em up games. Here is a list of reference footage I have observed;

The TV show – Deadliest Warriors TV show uses animated 3D models demonstrating combat of various martial arts showing weight and force. I think this is an excellent source for reference footage that displays good understanding of how the body moves with force and as well as using 3D models to simulate realistic reflexes and reactions which I will be able to use to help me develop my animation process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJgpnHP10XM

Beat-em up computer games references;

-         - Street fighter 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIG_vAKAAl8

-          -King of Fighters - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9VKIOGL2Sc

-          -Tekken - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B3qMlI_B7g

-          -Dead or Alive - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06H9DOeOJ2I

-          -Killer instinct - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOpK5Y36m1o

These type of beat-em up games have over exaggerated movements and unreal physics which may not be what I’m trying to do, but it shows a good example of stance such as Ryu from street fighter 4 while in his stationary stance he is still on his feet bobbing up and down coming from his bending knees and small shrugs of his shoulders. I have also noticed that his feet move before his body. I will also look into Ufc games and footage to help with referencing how movement is conveyed in the body.

looking at realistic fighting games such as;

Ufc 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrhDk1LB_1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWE79K2Ii-s

Break down

Listing the important animations I should have in my show reel

1.       Walk cycle

2.       Run cycle

3.       Combo Variations

4.       Stance

5.       Victory

6.       Knockout

7.       Block and weaving

8.       Implement props (punch bag)

      This is a list of animations I hope to achieve using the mannequin rig. So my plan now is to make a polished walk and run cycle which will fit the genre of the game style.

Animation plan

Animation plan

After some looking through the game show reels from my previous blog posts I started to consider what I wanted to include in my show reel. In this stage of planning I considered what genre, game type, camera view and movements I wanted to use in my show reel.

The rig I have decided to use is Mannequin 0.0.2 by Milan Pad.

The reason I think this rig is a good choice is because it shows a demo of how the mannequin can be used here is an example of the rig in use;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06fZxr8kPEE

Another valid reason why I am using this rig is because it does not have any distinctive features or faces so all the animation I perform on this rig do will define its own personality and characteristics through movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbogB-mgUwk  - basic walk cycle tutorial that I followed testing out the mannequin rig

Here is a front and side walk of my use of the mannequin rig;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDrSt7_AvAE&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZc5QJ8O5EM&feature=youtu.be

Front and side view of a small jump attempt;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdPIkB5ARFw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJ8BOIBkGc&feature=youtu.be

Jumping summersault front and side attempt;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRnHCGUJvfg&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVaGF0LaOIA&feature=youtu.be

route of animation

In the lecture we discussed different forms of animation and what area of animation production I would like to be involved in. we discussed

Animation in short films.

Main points to get across in short films

-         keep it simple

-         know your concept theme or meaning

-         avoid cliché

-         create memorable characters

-         emotion drives action

-         show don’t tell

-         create conflict

-         know your ending

-         entertain your audience

-         use humour

-         do something you like

  This tells me what I need to consider if I was to make a short film narrative to entertain the viewer but I have decided I want to specialise in creating animation for games.

 Animating characters and creatures is something I am really interested in since I’ve always loved games and just after watching the Jonathan Cooper video show reel during one of the lectures it has heavily influenced me even more into making animation for games here is a link to his show reel;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hldCtjT9baI

11 second club finale

In this final version of the 11 second club I was able to add in particle effects which took up a lot of time and found it very frustrating to work with. The main issues with working with particles;

-         were to try and make it flow in the right direction

-          and making it emit the particles so that they would flow instead of scatter

-         Make the particles stick to each other instead of bounce of one another

-         Make the particles stick to the character for a longer duration as it only seemed to attach to the characters for about a second and then flow off the mesh of the body.

After hours of playing around with particles I was satisfied with the end result but a part of me still wants to experiment in particle effects to get a better understanding on how they would work.

For the rest of the feedback from last week I went back into the male character and fixed some of his mouth animation and also removed some frames of the male hand gestures so that his actions would be clearer to read.

For the female I moved her hips more so it appeared to have more of a twist and not so rigid. I tried to fix the leg animation of the hop to make it less than a slide of the foot.

The other issue was the staging I changed some of the environment so that there was less in the scene and more focused on the characters with less distractions around them. I did not move the characters around as I was comfortable were they were instead I moved the camera slightly so that it would give a better angle.

In the end I overestimated the rendering time of the animation and sadly was not able to submit for the 11 second club but maybe I will try again in the near future.

Here is my final animation for the 11 second club competition October 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILWWfeKLnaE

11 second club continued

In this week’s session we were able to show of the animations of the 11 second club in front of the class to gain some feedback as well as to see how everyone else was getting on. The feedback I got seemed to be very positive and helpful.

Here is a list of small adjustments to be made during my feedback session;

- The females character twist in the hips were not convincing enough.

- The female seemed to have slid backwards instead of hoping backwards.

- The gestures of the male character were hard to read.

- positioning and staging was also considered.

Also during class we had a chance to learn about how to implement props into an animation and how a character would interact with objects. We were also given basic knowledge on how to work with particle emitters and also how to set up rendering for our animations instead of play blasts so they would have an overall polish to them.

To make my animation more convincing to the audience I really wanted to apply some particle effects into my scene so that there was something actually exploding onto the characters and cover them in a slime from the animal that’s indicated in the sound clip. So my task for next week is to tweak the animation and also have maybe some convincing slime effects using particles for next week.