Turd Complaint Office

Final hand-in for the ANI107 Walkcycle.
He's easily annoyed, though gives people chances. Two to be exact.

I think i could still tweak this further, possibly make him round a corner, more interesting camera angles etc.
I'm (hopefully) going to keep adding cycles to this blog for a good while, or create another.
Though those will probably just be playblasts, as this took a little while to render.

Rant over.

[edit] This is the only render you're getting Dan. I'm tweaking it, but don't you dare think i'll be rendering it out again! Oh no!

Naughty Man.

Ok, so i haven't uploaded any tests using the trax editor because i was busy finalising my walk cycle, desperately trying to finish it in time.

Issues i had: Now i thought creating an indirect slow walk, would contrast nicely with a fast direct walk...though i ran into a few problems with translating the slow walk. I wasn't translating at an even pace (a linear spline) as the feet would slide. To combat this i went for the obvious (as it seemed to work for the fast walk) which was making a wiggly spline for the Z translate.
This gave me this..

Very odd. I stressed about whether the cycle was right, and if the weight would be vastly different for a slow walk.
Then i finished off the book i should've finished reading before ( -.-# ).
So i edited the walks to have linear translate Z for the feet, calculated how much he should move per frame, and multiplied it, then made it a clip.
Hurah!

Traxy business

Made a test with the trax editor. Just to see if i could layer up animations, and control the master translate separately.

So the ball itself was animated using the trax editor (shown in screeny below), and it's translate across the floor was a parented group.

Oh the shame.

From this naff research vid, i think i'll be looking at basic stances, some of the follow through on the arms, and trying to match the pacing of the steps.

The Plan

Ok, so i've knocked up a little plan in photoshop.

Dude walks in, indirectly/strolling/slow paced, spots the briefcase, looks about, picks it up, then scarpers quickly.
Think i'll do a little filming next.

Evilness..

Having fun now.
Made the 'evil servant'. His mouth even gapes a little as a follow-through from the contact position.
I quite like this one, as a test, though if i were to make it properly i'd start from scratch and use different timings.

The reason i'd start from scratch is from recent experience.
It takes A LOT of work to correct stuff you move about in the dope sheet to re-time animation.
This is what happened when i tried to re-time it a little AND after trying very hard to correct that awful 'click'

The lift.

This was one from my research vids (below) of me lifting my heel as the passing position.
Gives a weird 'upbeat' feeling to the walk. It feels very strange to walk this way too..i think it's best suited to small children perhaps.

possibly just a 'silly walk'.