Walk Cycle Final

Finished the walk finally! Pretty happy with it, although there are still things I could improve on for sure. But this is what I handed in for the Winter Challenge atAnimationforum.net . I'll post an update with the results when they come in, but in the meantime let me hear what you think! Oh & do check out the other entries, there are some really good ones & the competition will be tough to judge I'm sure.

Here's a link to the fullscreen version
Cheers

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Getting there...

Yet another update on the walk cycle. I keep falling in & out of love with it now, I think I've just been staring at the same thing for too long. I was absolutely hating it last night, but then I got some really good feedback this morning, so maybe I was being a bit hard on myself. Regardless, it's still not where I want it to be, but it is getting closer. I should be able to get it done to my liking in the near future.

Here are 2 versions of the walk. First is 28 frames looping on 1's, then 56 frames looping on 2's. I also did a quick & dirty BG in TBS based on the sketch in my previous post. Ultimately I'd like to animate most of the BG elements to make the world seem "alive," but I'm not going to worry about that until the walk is where I want it. It's not a BG contest afterall...

I'm very curious to hear opinions on these, especially in terms of fast vs slow. Everytime I look at it again I like a different version, & I'm having trouble deciding. Is it too fast on 1's? Too slow on 2's? Aaaaaahhhhh!!! *pulls hair out* Well, whatever I go with I just hope I get it looking good by the end. I've already learned a lot through the 6 million mistakes I've corrected already & there are plenty more to go... So in the meantime, please give me your thoughts on the 2 versions.
On 1's

On 2's

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Another Walk Cycle Update

Wow, didn't realize how long it's been since I posted. Been pretty busy lately as I'm sure most people have. Anyway, I fixed the motion of the shoulders (again), but I'm happy with them this time. I'm also pleasantly surprised with the head turn. Now all I have left to tweak is the hood & his elbow/forearm placement in a few frames. I may also try to emphasise his belly bouncing as well for a more "cartoony" look. Please excuse the chaotic looking lines, I'm working sans pegbar/disc so I'm using paperclips & tape to allign my drawings. Let me know what you think:


Hmmm.... in my preview the walk is embedded & plays fine, however all I get when I publish the post is a red x. Can someone please comment & just let me know if you can see it? I'm on IE, maybe firefox will show it. *shrug* Just in case you can't see it, here's a link: Walk Cycle Pencil Test

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Walk Cycle Update

Nothing major, just revised the shoulders in the frames where they were out of whack, & tweaked the torso in a few spots. The overall motion looks much better now I think, but the arms still need work, they are out of place in a few frames still. The entire thing is 15 frames on 2's right now, but I might add a couple frames if I need to to help smooth the motion of the arms, we'll see how it looks when I clean it up though & go from there.
Here is the updated version:

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AF Winter Challenge - Walk Cycle

Well, got a new challenge from the Animation Forum the other day. This one is a bit more involoved than the weekly character design contests are, as we have to complete a well planned walk cycle. I'm really excited about this one as I know it will force me to push myself & I'm bound to learn something new :)
Here is the Challenge & it's description in full.


My first step of course was to do some homework. I found a number of great resources for planning out & executing walk cycles, and I suggest you give them a look. Some stuff gets repeated, but it's well worth reading. There's a ton more out there just a google search away, but these are a good base.

Idleworm Walk Cycle Tutorial

Walk Tutorial by Mike Brown

Preston Blair's page of walks (reference)

Now that I've done some research, I can start thinking about what kind of walk I want to attempt. I ended up deciding on a combination of sorts, where my character is going to walk very slowly on screen in a downtrodden/forlorn sort of way, then find something on the ground that perks his spirits up & makes him skip/prance off into the distance.

Sounds good right? So how do we do this? How do we plan it out? Well I'm loosley basing my char's walk on Preston Blair's "slouch" walk. Although I think (hope) that I've put my own touch of originality on it. But that gives me a general idea of how I want my contact poses to look. "Contact" poses are when the feet are farthest apart from each other & both touching the ground. The contact poses are the most extreme positions in any walk. Now, I don't usually give hard & fast rules, at least I try not to, but CONTACT POSES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN ANY WALK CYCLE!!! IF YOU DO NOT START WITH THE CONTACTS THEN THE SKY WILL FALL AND THE THIRD WORLD WILL BE SENT BACK TO THE FOURTH!!!

Well, your walk will likely suck anyway.... Seriously, the contact poses determine the length of your character's stride. This is hugely important to the rest of your walk, and if you screw up the contacts, it will be like building a house on sand. Spend some time on these poses & it will save you LOTS of time later on. Once you have your two contact poses, the rest just needs to be filled in & the only limits are your imagination & creativity.

Here are my 3 contact poses. They are frames 1, 8 & 15, with 1 & 15 being the same drawing. This establishes a full looping walk, & even just playing these two frames will give the semblance of a walk.

As you can see I add little notes underneath my roughs so I know what needs rivising on each frame when I eventually get to cleaning up.

Now I can put some more thought into the personality of this walk. I've already got a pose that suggests he's a little bummed out, & to stress that even further in the walk I want him to do a couple things:
1) Drag his feet like they weigh 50 pounds each.
2) Have lots of weight & take a lot of effort to lift it. I'll do this by manipulating his up & down motion through the walk, making him take a long time to get up to his high point, but coming down into his recoil position very quickly.

To plan this out, I drew up a couple of charts (I don't know the proper name for these if there is one) to help me place my frames & get a feel for the timing of the walk. The first chart shows the frames spaced in relation to each other & marked at different heights to indicate keyframes, inbetweens, and breakdowns. (with a couple mistakes on my part, but that's what it's supposed to show :)


This next one again has the frames spaced out, but this time along a motion path that I drew for the top of his head. Now the timing of the walk becomes much clearer, as you can see that he will go from the high point(frames 7 & 14) to the recoil (low point, frames 2 & 9) in only 2 frames respectively. However, to get from the recoil to the high point of the walk it will take 5 frames. This should give me the slow up/fast down motion that I said I wanted.
C = contact pose
R = recoil pose (downstep)
P = Passing pose
HP = high point
IB = inbetween *note* more of these will probably be added


Just to sum up in case it is unclear, I begin the first chart with frames 1 & 15, and frame 8 spaced directly in the middle of them. These are the three contact poses from the first image above. Right between the contact poses I put the passing poses, frames 4 & 11, so his legs will pass each other right at the mid-point of his step. I then split the distance between the contact & passing poses and added the recoil frames, 2 & 9. Then I did the same for the high points, frames 7 & 14, putting them directly between the passing & following contact poses. Now I have all my key frames spaced out, *note* on the chart I should have made the marks for frames 2 & 9 the same height as 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15. The tallest marks represent keyframes. I then put a few inbetweens (the smaller marks) between some of the keys, to make for the timing I want. Notice all the inbetweens happen between the recoil & high point. This is how I will get the slow-up/fast-down motion I've been mentioning.

And here is what I have so far roughed out. Still have a bunch of inbetweens & breakdowns left, which are the blank white frames right now. I also noticed that in a couple frames I have the shoulders going the opposite way that they should to counter the hips. That's why it looks jumpy in a few spots. I'm probably just going to finish the inbetweens first then tweak the shoulders where necessary. Overall though I'm extremely happy with how this is shaping up so far. If you have any crits or comments please feel free to give them, I'm always open to suggestions. Also I'll post updates here of course, but if you're interested you can keep up with my progress in this thread.

Hope some people found this helpful, it's by no means a bible to go by, just a record of my workflow you can compare with your own in the off chance it's useful.

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CD 18 walk inked

Well here is the inked version. I tried something with bitmaps for the coloring which I think I like. I'll keep playing with the idea & see what I can make with it. It certainly has some possibilities, but it seems so far to make for some gigantic files. We'll see... but please let me know what you think in the meantime.

In lieu of the media player that doesn't seem to work, here is a link:

CD 18 Walk Inked

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CD 18 update

Added frames to the walk & got the first frame inked. I'm starting to like this character too, now I need to think of a name & a story for her :)

I'll post more when I get to the transformation. No plans to use that for anything but I think it will be a great exercise for me. I have another exercise of sorts in the works, but I may hold off until I finish that & show it step by step, because so far I like how it's shaping up. In the meantime, let me know what you think of this character & the walk so far. Cheers .

The media player here won't work for me, so here's a link to a SWF version that loops: Walk SWF

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Introduction to "The Early Birds"

This post isn't meant to be a bible on what order to do things, because I am certainly no authority on the matter. In fact, maybe some people can clue me in on things I am doing wrong, because I'm sure I'm making plenty of rookie mistakes. Anyway, I have an idea for a series that I've just started working on, so I figure this is a perfect time to start sharing my workflow & such. This blog won't be 100% dedicated to this series, but since I'm starting the two at the same time, it will be a good opportunity to share my creative process as it unfolds. Hopefully some people will benefit from reading it along the way, and anyone with advice or tips for me is certainly welcome to share them.

Step one in the creative process is obviously generating an idea. I'm sure everyone's brain works a little differently, but I know that the majority of my ideas (or at least the good ones) seem to happen spontaneously, so based on that, I would advise anyone & everyone to always carry a pad of paper & a pen. When you have an idea, write it down, or you will be cursing yourself later. Now I had wanted to do something with a couple of fishing buddies for a while, but that was all I had, no artwork, no script, no setting, no character personalities in mind, just an idea for a buddy piece that revolved around fishing. So I just kept that much in the back of my mind until something else came to me.

So I'm working with an idea involving 2 buddies, & the obvious path is the standard odd couple spinoff, or a beavis & butthead/ Bill & Ted/ Wayne's world type thing, which is O.K. but played out. So then I thought of something more like a Tom & Jerry or Coyote & Roadrunner relationship, which again is all well & good, but been done a million times. Then I decided based on a quick sketch I had done that my fishing buddies would be birds... no reason other than I liked the sketch & it looked something like a bird crossed with Grover from sesame street.

Now I have two buddies that sort of fall into the "Tom" & "Coyote" role, but who is "Jerry" or "the Roadrunner?" Well, fishing buddies need bait, & birds eat worms, and there's no bait more timeless than the humble worm, so... I found my third character, & more importantly, my "Jerry." At this stage I have the general idea for the overal story, two protagonists, and now my antagonist. I also have a few initial sketches that I've done which you can see here:










This is the character design phase, where I put some thought into who these characters are, how they move & what their personalities are, and of course try to bring all of this out in the drawings. The best example I have of this so far is this walk cycle of Larry. The first 7 frames I like, but I did a horrible job on the second half of the cycle, I was in a big rush to ink it, the pencil drawings actually look better. It is 13 frames on 2's, & as it stands right now I'm happy with the motion except for frames 8 & 9, I need to have his right leg look more like he is swinging it out to the side as it comes around. Anyway...
The main characters are Larry & Ron (I'm not married to the names but for now...) and of course the worm, I'm thinking he'll be called either "Cyn" or "anti" - more on why later. Anyway, Larry is a turkey vulture. He is a very laid-back, relaxed country boy, sort of awkward & goofy but still the man. He fishes because there is no better way to spend his time, plain & simple. Ron is more of the NRA type, donned in cammo gear, militant patriotic attitude etc, that fishes & hunts for sport. Now I have been using the names Larry & Ron because my first thought was to take a political angle with this toon, having Larry represent my liberal views while Ron represents my conservative ones. The worm is going to be loosely based on Antisthenes (student of Socrates & founder of the "Cynic" school of Philosophy) hence his name being either Cyn or Anti. He will be the one who points out the plethora of hippocritical behavior that he sees in both Larry and Ron. I also envision him with a big time Napoleon complex, he will have a tough-guy attitude & will always be ready to kick ass & take names, but alas, he is a worm.

I'm pretty comfortable with the characters right now, & think they have the potential to play off each other quite nicely if I can manage some decent scripts. At the moment I am still developing exactly what each character will look like from all angles, & figuring out how I want them to move. Aside from that I have been laying out some backgrounds & landscapes to try & establish the world they live in. Here are a couple super-rough sketches of Larry & Ron's bedrooms I have so far, they're totally out of proportion & perspective, but they capture the general idea I want.

Well, that post was longer than expected, but I've been writing it in pieces for a few days. I'll try to keep future posts shorter & more frequent, but I hope it was worth the read.... probably not.

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