Final 3D walk- live action reference

I am in the middle of making my final 3D walk for my assessment and I have decided to use Richard Ashcroft's walk in the video to "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve as my reference. I can't embed it in my blog but here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3m4e45bTo

I shall post up the animated walk as soon as I've finished it.

National Gallery drawing 24/02/2010

It's a little late but here are some sketches I did of paintings in the National Gallery last Wednesday as part of my research.

Click on an image to see it full size.

First successful attempt at fully rigging a human character

I have just spent the day producing my first fully rigged character model in Maya using a tutorial. Here is a picture:

The tutorial taught me how to properly rig a character with a full skeleton, along with IK Handles in the legs and feet; and also locators in the knees. I also put in controllers so I could move the joints in the legs and also to move the ROOT joint (the joint found in the crotch that links all of the other joints).

I did not put IK Handles in the arms as that was not in the tutorial; however, I feel confident that I would be able to put IK Handles in the arms if I needed to.

The tutorial gave me confidence in rigging a model, because I remember in the past that I used to always run into problems when trying to rig characters and I used to hate rigging.

I also made this basic animation of the character moving; I may also try animating the character walking at some point.

Sketching life in London 17/02/2010

Today, I went into London to sketch the life and movement of the people.  I visited the Tate Modern, Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate Britain to sketch passers-by and also to sketch paintings and sculptures which captured the human form and had a sense of life and movement.

The sketches do not really show up very well when I scan them in but hopefully you can get what is happening in each pose.

I also bought a book on drawing Manga in the Tate Modern today called Mega Manga by Keith Sparrow, because I am interested in adapting other styles in my own drawing; and also, some of the people in my group for the storyboard project have been doing some character designs in the Manga style and I think it will be useful to adapt this for the final animation to have a consistent style.

Max walks

I have just done my first 3D walk cycle test using a character rig called Max.

I did this using the Erik Westlund tutorial, which has helped to give the walk cycle smooth movements and a sense of weight; although I need to improve the arms and give them more movement in the elbows.

I really like the Max rig as it is well constructed and has good bends in the arms and legs. The only problem is that the model is huge and is without a Master Controller which may be a problem for exporting the rig and building an environment around the rig for the final walk cycle.

I am going to continue making more tests in Maya to perfect my walk and also to try out other rigs.

Possible rigs

I'm not too keen on Barry so I'm considering a few other rigs which I might use for my final walk cycle. Here are a few links:

https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/bloke

https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/blake

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/ollie

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/max-for-maya

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/the-andy-rig

https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/the-librarian?os=windows

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/alfred

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/nossy

First walk cycle attempt with Barry

Here is a video to a walk cycle that I made by animating a model called Barry. This was my first attempt at animating a walk in Maya, which I did before using the Erik Westlund tutorial. I am quite pleased with my first attempt but it could do with some improving.

I may or may not use Barry to produce my final 3D walk cycle, depending on whether or not I find a better model.

2D Profile Walk

Here is the video for a simple 2D profile walk that I made using Toon Boom Studio.

I made this walk cycle, using this extract from Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit.

2D Perspective walk

Here is the video to my 2D Perspective walk.

I based my perspective walk on a character called Fido Dido which was the mascot for the drink, 7Up in the 90s. I chose to model my walk on this character because he is a very simplistic character, yet he moves in a really smooth way which conveys his cool personality.

The Fido Dido animation can be viewed here:

I also used this extract from Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit in order to plan out my perspective walk and maintain the proportions in my character.

Sketches

Sketches for 2D walk cycles

I used these sketches for my research into the profile and perspective walks.

Walking ball tutorial

I've only just finished making a basic walk cycle in Maya, using a model and following a tutorial that I got from this site: http://ewestlund.com/tutorial.html. The tutorial is good as it really breaks down the process of making a decent walk cycle.

It took me an afternoon to animate the model but I am pretty pleased with the results...

Dusting off the old blog

Its been over a year since I last posted something on here so here are some videos of my recent work, which I have done since starting my animation degree...

Here is a nice animation about a boy serenading a girl with his guitar...


And here is a ball with tail animation that I made using a package called Maya...


I'm going to be using this blog to display my artwork much more often now.

James.