EXPERIENCE ON THE UNIT

The overall experience of the unit was really good and worth while. I got to learn new things in various new ways which was the interesting part about it. I never thought I would make a man walk on maya, it seemed like an impossible task but it happened.  When i actually read the brief of the final assignment, i could only think of how to start, but once I actually sat down to do it, I figured out that it can be cracked with some bits of handwork.

Doing the modeling and rigging in class was something that was worth learning even though it was just a part of the classroom, Building an actual model was definitely a very interesting task. The life drawing classes I attended taught me a lot about body proportions and I also gained a lot of practical knowledge which would help me to develop a character in the right proportion in an easy way. Every little thing that we made or moved during the term will always come to use in the field of animation.

I got stuck at a lot of places but I think thats what it is about and it all depends on how we solve the problems we come across while working at our projects to make it easier for the next time we do the same task or solve a similar problem.

This experience will always be remembered and cherished. Thank you for all the amazing moments.

FINAL TESTS

2D BALL

3D BALL

2D WALK CYCLE

3D WALK CYCLE

Perspective view

Side view

Front view

PERSONALIZED WALK CYCLE

PERSONALIZED WALK CYCLE

TRANSITION OF A WALK FROM STEP TO STEP

When I started with the assignment, I was trying to figure out what to do exactly. Then I thought of showing a transition of 2-3 different types of walks within the same frame to showcase the difference in a movement. When a person is walking normally is very different from when a person is walking to do an action. 

Through my walk I wanted to focus on some kind of an action which is taking place during the walk to show how the movement is changing from a normal walk to a walk where some action is happening. 

Some websites that I visited during the process :

http://www.webdesign.org/photoshop/imageready-animation/walk-cycle-of-a-stick-man.9470.html 


http://walk-cycle-depot.blogspot.com/ 


http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=45456.0



http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/

The above images were taken from http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/. These actions are actually very different from a normal walk but the movement here is still a walk. This is what I wanted to showcase through my walk. 

PROCESS

I started with thinking about the main concept that I wanted to show through my walk. Inside my mind I knew I wanted to show 2-3 actions taking place after a normal walk. since I had worked with a man in the digital tutorials so I thought of using a girl for my final walk cycle.

CONCEPT: A girl walking across the screen and thinking about various things and enacting them out.

The actions I thought of were: 

1) Walking normally

2) Pulling a rope

3) Dancing around

4) Dancing while walking

After I finished thinking of the concept, I started doodling to figure out my basic frames and screen for the animation.

The movement of the legs

The movement while dancing excitedly.

The basic frames when a person pulls a rope.

How do people behave while dancing and their movement.

After I finished the doodles, I finished doing the frames with the girl and capturing her main angles. I wanted a very graphical look in my animation, which did not really focus on the face or other things but mainly on the legs and hands, that is the reason which I took challenging actions to experiment the most with the hands and leg coordination.

SOME FRAMES FOR THE BASIC WALK

SOME FRAMES FOR THE ROPE WALK

SOME FRAMES FOR THE DANCING WALK

WALK TESTS

During this test, I was trying to figure out the correct frame and sequence of the action.

During this test, I figured out the position but I was trying to slow down the movement of the rope pulling walk, because while a person pulls a rope, they are applying pressure and the walk tends to become slow.

After fixing all the angles and frames, this is what it looked like, the difference with this walk is that, it also has the person getting back to the normal walk in the end.

During this test, I tried to put an a fence in front of the girl, while she did the rope act to see if it works that way, but it did not.

DECIDING THE BACKGROUND

I did not want a background where she is walking in the garden, to create an illusion keeping in mind the graphical look of the girl, I decided to make her walk in front of an open book and a background which helps and keeps the focus on the girl and the movement of her legs and hands.

Working with about a 100 layers and remembering each little frame was quite a task to do but the overall experience for the project was definitely amazing.

FINAL TEST

The girl is actually walking around and she is thinking about different things like what if there was a rope here? and then she starts to act as if there is an actual rope there and walks like that, then she thinks about what if she was dancing? so then she starts to dance and walk alongside. The walk actually brings out 3 personality traits in one person, as in how would she walk normally, how would she walk is she was pulling a rope and how would she walk while dancing? 

I basically wanted to experiment with challenging movements to show the difference in movements during different actions in one single person.

3D WALK CYCLE

DIGITAL TUTORIALS

After finishing with the 2D walk, I was meant to do the 3D walk in maya with the digital tutorials rig. I have never used maya before so i was kind of freaked out about how will I manage, but all I could think was that I need to make this man walk and that too a good walk so I just started off with it.

The one thing that I really kept with me at all times while doing this walk in maya was the picture below, it really does help a lot when you are moving from one step to the other. I would call this my dictionary/guide for the 3D walk.

After understanding the above image, I went back to my 2D walk to see what was the difference. I understood, that in the 3D walk, ill also have to focus on every little detail and not only the hand and legs coordination. So, I was trying to understanding as in how does a hip movement take place in a males body or how are the arms going up and down and how does the head move. It was interesting actually notice how are fingers move in and out while we walk.

So, I started with my 3D walk on maya, and this is what I did initially.

The hip movement was totally messed up and there were jerks that were coming in while this man walked. So, I was just not happy with what i was doing with it, so before actually going to the hands and the head, I thought of doing it again and then moving forward with it.

So, after doing the same thing again, and making changes in the graph editor this is what I got, it seemed a lot better and I also understood the movement in a better way.

FINAL ATTEMPT FOR THE 3D WALK CYCLE

PERSPECTIVE VIEW

SIDE VIEW

FRONT VIEW

TOP VIEW

This exercise was actually a challenge for me, I was absolutely new to maya and I had no idea about what I was doing until I slowly started experimenting with angles and the graphs and basically everything else.

Initially I did not even manage to pick up the entire leg to move, instead I managed to break in into many parts and take just the ankle away. It was an interesting experience to find everything and get it into place. I was very happy with my final walk because I did not think ill be able to do this in a good way, in the beginning I thought I will only be able to move him as a whole maybe and not anything else, but then when I managed to move his fingers and hips and also make his head wobble, I was amazed. 

The entire process was an interesting yet challenging task which will come o use all my life in the field of animation. This bit of learning was worth the risk taken and a lot of hard work.

2D WALK CYCLE

A PROFILE WALK ACROSS THE SCREEN IN 2D

Initially, before I actually started doing my walk, I looked up on how a person actually walks and how different people walk in a different manner. The walk of a person actually talks a lot about their personality. 


But before that I looked at some of my previous work, which I had done relating to the walk cycle. I had made a flip book, which actually shows the transition of a man walking out the page. That exercise had helped to understand the movement of hands and legs at a very basic level.

After looking at this, I looked at some videos which would give me the real understanding  of people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wippooDL6WE]

After watching the above video, I understood the movement of the leg properly, since he picks up his leg high up in the air, and if we watch it step by step, the leg motion is very clear and interesting to notice.

I looked at certain books and pictures of walk cycles for reference like the animation survival kit and the complete animation book and took careful notice at the pictures below, the touch points of the legs, and important things like hand and leg coordination which actually makes the walk look smooth.

The above image actually gave me the understanding of the entire walk cycle with each step broken down into small steps, but I was looking for a more refined way of dividing each step which I think the picture below helped me to do.

After looking at both those pictures, I tried to put my understanding to a simple phase of walk cycle which you cans see below.

After that, I was doodling stick figures for my final 2D walk.

Finally, after understanding all the basics required, I came down to 5 main steps for a walk cycle, which are the main and essential ones for a walk to happen. I decided to have the whole body instead of stick figures, because its nice to actually assume that its an actual person with curves etc and also the triangular shape of the feet and the elbow helps me to understand that which direction are they going

into.

   

UNDERSTANDING THE MOVEMENT OF EACH STEP IN ONE FRAME

The walk cycle is actually divided into 5 basic steps which are: 

1. Contact with the ground
2. The feet down on the ground
3. Passing upwards
4. Up where the body leans forward
5. Contact with ground again

After creating all my five steps and seeing every movement carefully, I created my final 2D WALK CYCLE on flash which you can see below.

The entire exercise was very useful and interesting, while doing the exercise, each time I was walking on the roads i could help but to notice how people are walking and how are there movements changing in every step. It was a funny experience on the roads because every person walks very differently and its very interesting to notice that. After doing this exercise I think I have a much better understanding about walks and the proportion and the change in movements.

THE MOVING BALL 2D & 3D

2D BALL

I was meant to explore how a ball moves on a 2D and 3D surface.

I wanted to represent my journey from India to London and how

things change differently. The ball actually represents an airplane.




3D BALL




Perspective view

Front view

Side view

In a 3D surface, I tried to play around with the sphere in different directions.