IOL week 5

COMPOUND MOVEMENT

AIM After discussion with Nick I will use this exercise to develop the walk cycle for my character, Oscar. I would like to discover if Harmony is the best program to do this cycle in.

RATIONALE I have never completed a walk cycle and I think this is a fundamental animation skill and aligned with my interest in drawing people. Oscar’s walking forms a core component of Home.

METHOD Do planning sketches in Harmony based on Richard William’s walk cycle and work over frame by frame.

OUTCOME

I have only completed a first pass based on Richard William’s walk cycle. Walk cycles (examining the way he lifts his feet, cadence, stride length etc.) will form Folio 2. Nick has suggested that I use stick legs that are closer to Oscar’s and that I also choose a second movement. I have been thinking about way in which the ladder lands on the roof so will make this my second movement over the holiday break.

IOL_Week5_Walk_V1
https://vimeo.com/449959231

PROCESS DIARY

I started to set up the legs as shapes but quickly discovered that I could not remember anything about rigging! I returned to Week 4 tutorials and went through the first one on deformers. That was fun! The Bezier curves, once I got the hang of reversing the IA direction are great. Video exported and onto next tutorial.

 Hierarchies Tutorials (from Weeks 3 and 4)

•  Not clear about how to complete a cycle so that it is seamless but other bits are working.

•  The deformers are making strange distortions on the drawing. I tried a few different types of deformers (bone, curve and envelope) but they all distorted, just in different ways. This will matter because I am planning to use a deformer on the feet.

•  Completed tutorial and exported.

https://vimeo.com/452749325

Hierarchies Part 3 Tutorial.

•  Start with the hierarchy then build in the animated parts.

•  Again, very cute Nick! The organic movements combined with
the mechanical movements are very satisfying!

https://vimeo.com/452759001

So, now, back to the legs!!!!!!!!!!! 

WALK CYCLE

•  After multiple rebuilds I discovered that the distortion comes from a line used in constructing the shape. How do I use the polyline tool without it making a line? Setting brush width to 0 isn’t stopping it.

•  Line issue partly resolved but why is the curve moving away from the foot shape and creating further distortions. Maybe needs to be an envelope?

•Ignoring the foot issues as now have one leg working reasonably. How do I use that for the second leg but in opposite cycle? I don’t want the two legs to have different movements so it needs to be duplicated (done) but how is the cycle then reversed?

•  Should it be on the spot instead of moving across? A Parent Peg could move the whole rig across?

Not able to solve this so looking for tutorials to find a different way to manage the second leg.

•  During my break I realised I need to search up ‘RIG LEG in HARMONY’. This took me to the right spot which was just before the tuts I was trying to work with but could not understand (animating the rig). Toon Boon lets you download pre made walk rigs with the hierarchies already set up. For now I am using these as my rigging was not working. One of the main issues is where to place the pivot points.