Just completed my first walk cycle at school. It is still rough and I intended to do more but had to simplify because the volume of school work is so high that it is easy to fall behind.
It is also my first character design aside from doodling on napkins. My first draft character arms and face was growing and shrinking every frame.
I'm going to try an animation short using this character design in Moho for an upcoming animation festival -force myself to use the stuff I'm learning.
Well here is the fat guy cycle - I've since added the hair (only lines on this one) for the final animation. Still rough and I note the back leg doesn't go through the same motion as its partner but time is up again. Even with "The Animator's Survival Guide" walk cycles seem tought to me. I'd mostly been a 'napkin doodler' and not use to drawing the same object from multiple angles through multiple frames. Need to learn body mechanics, drawing skills and lots of other stuff.
Anyway crits and tips welcome. I just did a simple flag animation and now we get to do one of our own choice that demonstartes the wave principle so I am going to try a swimming eel. Going to rent "The Little Mermaid" to see how they handled that motion as my initial tests look a bit strange.
Hope you don't mind me being direct. The walk cycle is not credible because of the distribution of weight. If a heavy guy is leaning back, there's no way he could walk as lightly as that. I remember the hippo/crocodile ballet in "Fantasia" - you really felt the weight of the hippo; any change of weight is carefully counterbalanced.
Trying to be constructive! Hope the studies are going well.
J
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
Thanks for the crits - you are right on no doubt. After the 'wave' animations this weekend with the eel we will do some animations with weight like a guy picking up a boulder, then a guy carrying a heavy weight on his back so I expect that to help. Next two semesters we begin life drawing and we also will have a anatomy class for artists which I think will help me some.
On a side note someone on cgtalk suggested I remove the frame listed as '5' (actually is after 6) and I tried it. The animation smoothed out quite a bit.
I will have to rent Fantasia and look at it again - I 've been checking out a bunch of toons this holiday weekend and in particular observing how they handle weight/walking/waves and backgrounds.
