Character Animation DEVLOG 3 (Feb 23 - Mar 9)
- smcconnell224
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Do-Overs
The first week of homework for this devlog was taking animations we already did and improving on them. Thankfully, I got the ok on a lot of the animations I already did and I was doing Game Jam this week. I was busy but I still tried to do some improvements. I worked more on my jumping legs animation by adjusting the arcs to make the movement more fluid.
I also realized I struggle a bit with in-betweens. I think I lose confidence between my poses and I don't know how to work the graph editor as much, and it's something I have to practice more with. In fact, my lack of confidence with in-betweens is probably what causes some of my timing to look strange as well.
Animating with Reference
This is something we delved deep in to for the last few weeks; how to use references and how to make them. We went through the process of taking reference into SyncSketch, doing draw overs, exporting that, and using that in Maya. We made reference in class for the 2-Punch Combo animation.
This animation is still stepped because I didn't have a lot of time to spline it due to Game Jam. I still really like how the stepped version came out. Another thing we did for homework was use reference to animate a figure going from sitting to standing.
I have mixed feelings about how this one turned out. I think the timing is nice and the movement of going from sitting to standing looks nice, but I really should have switched the hands to IK so they would have stayed in place on the thighs. I was also trying to make the hand sway slightly at the beginning, and IK probably would have made that look a lot nicer and would have been easier to do. I not only looked at the reference video to do this animation, but I also sat down and got up in front of a mirror dozens of times to see the movement.
Wave Principle
I really enjoyed this animation. It was satisfying to make and I thought it turned out really nice. I really like creating looping animations and mirroring poses.
Next Steps
I have to keep working on aspects of animation I'm not confident with so that I can build up those skills. I need to get better at in betweens, timing, and I need to keep an eye on my arcs. I also need to get into graph editor more.
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