More Silly Walks

Second pass, adding in more steps/refining the poses a bit:

Ministry of Ballie Walks

And we're off!

So, here we sit in Week 10, out of 12, in the first block of AM.  This is flying by.  Gah.

This week's go-round builds upon the last few week's "vanilla walk cycle" and entails creating a "walk cycle with character."  A walk with character, you say?  Well, if you insist.....

:)

I've soooo been intending to give this a shot since I saw this assignment on the syllabus in Week One.  Here's my initial planning doc:

I'll be diving into blocking this bad boy out later today.  This should be fun.


And here's the aforementioned first "dirty pass" at blocking(the timing still needs serious work. I'm just getting down poses at this point):

Tests

I think the tumblers may have finally fallen into place

At least I HOPE they have**crossing fingers**

This @#$#*^& overlapping pendulum has been kicking my ass for damn near two weeks.  I've been "close" on it the entire time, but just couldn't get my head wrapped around what was wrong with it.

After re-watching(and re-watching....and re-watching) the Lango tutorials/lecture, and getting some fresh input from Leigh Rens(one of the mentors at AM), I THINK it has sunk in...or at least it's a lot closer to where it needs to be than it was.  And, as usual, it was the simplest solution that worked the best: Force the shapes with as few keys as possible, worry about what it looks like on screen instead of how it looks in the graph editor.  When in doubt in regards to weight/inertia, make the end of the chain reach back towards its position in the previous frame.

"Ye Olde Way":

"Ye Newe Way":

In the newest revision I also applied the "keyframe shift" gimmick.   It still looked pretty good without it, but when I shifted the keys ahead for each joint in the chain, the effect was pretty noticeable and really added a lot.  I can see why in certain situations you wouldn't prolly want to go that route(it really does make editing afterward a real chore), but I like the result even more with it here.

"They rally roun' tha family....wit' a pocket full of shells"

"Balls on parade! Uhh! Yeah!  Come wit' it now!!!" 

:)

Okay, so now that that's out of the way we're on to week 8 and a generic Ballie walk. Yay!  Inching closer and closer to that full character. 

Here's my initial planning sketches for ballie:

 

And here's the first pass of basic key/passing/breakdown poses:

**Insert crazy Morello/scratch solo here**

Oh, brain....you wacky funster, you.

So, Week 7 was starting off on a fantastic note.  I burnt an entire day yesterday working on revisions from Week 6.....that are completely optional and don't retroactively effect grades in any way.  For whatever reason, my gray matter decided not only MUST I complete those revisions, but they MUST be done prior to starting this week's round of work....

:-\

Yeah, so, that was pretty stupid, Brain.  I'm afraid I need you to turn in your keys.  *holds out hand*  Awesome, you can go sit in the back now.  Everybody out for new management!


So, now that I have that under control, here's my initial planning and uber-dirty blocking for this week's assignment with the Tailor rig.  More overlapping action goodness, coupled with all the other fundamentals we've been covering so far with the bouncing ball.  Boss(that's right, I said "boss."  I'm bringin' it back).

Planning:

Dirty Blocking Pass:

BBVD would be proud...

...cuz of how much swing I was able to generate this week. (Yeah. I know. They can't all be gems.)

So, week 6 is a wrap. This week's assigment covered nailing down the physics and timing of the successive breaking of joints on a rudimentary pendulum object. My final version for submission is as follows:

This was actually sort of a pain in the ass. :) It's one of those things that you figure you've seen about a million times, so you should absolutely know what it looks like and how it reacts. And that all makes sense....until you actually try and figure out how the damn pendulum should actually react.

@$#* you, Isaac, and your "Newtonian Laws"! Jerk!!