#stepped key

[monstertrex]

AnimDojo Animation 2

[monstertrex]

AnimDojo Animation 1

[monstertrex]

AnimDojo Rig Animations

During this animation creation, I have learn’t that stepped animation is quite fun to create, even when you have so many points that you control. I had a few challenges that I came across, such as getting the camera in the correct positions in order to have the facial expression visible. 

She gets a bit possessed mid-way through creating the animation...

[monstertrex]

Flour Sack Animations

In this weeks task, we were given the task of creating flour sack animations in a different animation style of step keys, in which the animation is not calculated by the computer, rather we create every still frame, without blending them beforehand, so that we can get the correct character body language in each frame, without the computer interfering in between the animation. 

After finishing the first animation, I realised that I enjoyed creating the animation much more than any other animation I have created previously. The main reason was that I had full control of the entire character, the whole way through. The reason for this is because when you let the 3D program create transitions between key frames, everything can appear very floaty, things start to go further out than they really should be, things begin moving even though they are in the same exact place as they were originally, etc. 

This type of animation create problems upon problems upon problems. When you try to fix the issues that are created using the automatic transitions, you run into more problems, and then that creates more problems when you try to fix that, and that just repeats itself many more times. 

Another problem I see when using automatic transitions is that when you attempt to change something - for instance, the leg moves during the animation even though it’s meant to stay still - you have all of these things to manipulate to fix the problem: x-translation, y-translation, z-translation, x-rotation, y-rotation, z-rotation, x-scale, y-scale, z-scale. This list repeats itself for every single sub-joint you have - eg: shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger_1, finger_2, finger_3, finger_4, thumb. This entire list gets VERY complicated and overwhelming VERY quickly, and that becomes a threat for the animator. They don’t know how to fix it, especially if the rest of the animation is completely fine, but you don’t want to create any issues with what you already have. The animation is too far gone at that point.