For this week, I began work on a new project experimenting with LEGO brick building. Not much animation takes place in this project, but it focuses more on the visualization of bricks appearing and moving into a formation. This process takes quite some time to outfit, and will be important for future projects of mine. This first iteration has a tool forming, mainly utilizing the visibility of objects. Then, more pieces appear and move into place as part of the final build. The project mainly revolves around translation and scaling of objects.
This was a project I began early concepts for last semester, and now I want to create the full proper animated scene. It will be further fleshed out and diversified once the basic animation is figured out.
Following the previous post, as an animator I have been tasked with continuing block-out animations for the non-playable characters for the game. Since the rig was not ready just yet, I along with other animators have used the Bodymech rigs to get a brief idea of how we and the project leads want the animations to look further down the line. A preliminary rig was created and used as a further testing ground. So far things have gone well in the beginning process.
My individual work focused on the "happy," "angry," and "nervous" personalities. Each was mainly building upon previous weeks of work, adding in certain traits to differentiate one personality from another. The basic animations consisted of a walk cycle, idle, sitting idle, sit down, stand up, drinking, and eating. Each of these were to be completed for all personalities as rough animations.
I was also tasked with animating the front door for the tavern. This job was simple and fairly easy to manage. Through communication with the lead and modelers, I set up a preliminary set of open and close animations to be implemented into the game prototype.
Moving on from this batch of work, I will be moving forward with the personality animations. I will be finessing each animation, as well as bringing them over to Unity for implementation into the official game build. The official rig should be finished soon as well, so once that happens, my work will be dedicated to translating the movements of each personality animation over.
For this week, I had a bit of "animator's block" and had a bit of trouble figuring out what to work on. I was not quite motivated to continue work on previous projects early on, and instead opted to start a new animation first.
This new animation focuses on a single character going into a slide underneath a barrier. This was created more haphazardly without much reference to go off of. That is certainly one thing I will focus on later if need be. Once critiques come in, I hope this could spark some new ideas connected. One particular challenge was the multilateral transition from upright standing/running down into the actual slide. As the LEGO character doesn't bend like a normal humanoid, rules must be broken, and illusion of motion must be utilized. Certain pieces also have to be put in unnatural positions to make the movement readable.
https://youtu.be/NY1W9PdMrO0
After starting on the previous animation, I decided to go back to my project from a couple of weeks ago. The boot-up of the mech with the character entering was a good start, and I wanted to go further with it. Taking in critiques from the last session, I made adjustments to animations in places such as the arms, character entrance, cage fluctuation, and arm weight. I also wanted to work on a better rig system for the legs, as they are not in inverse kinematics. Applying new knowledge from rigging, I did a preliminary setup for the feet and leg movement that is somewhat independent of the main build, while still functioning with the mech as a whole. It will need much more work, but so far it works better than expected.
This week's work was primarily put towards blocking out animations for the 495 Advanced Production game project. I continued work on different personality animation cycles happy and angry. For each I prepared initial ideas for actions including idles, sitting down, drinking, walking, and more. These are all meant to be early developments to be improved later when ideas are finalized, as well as when the official rig is completed. Once that takes place, the blockouts can be referenced and proper, more streamlined animation can be focused on.
This week, I have continued experimenting with the mechs and characters from the previous week. I have tried to create an animation merging the two styles. The main focus is having them interact within the same environment, working together. The character will hop into the mech, which will then power up and prepare for some sort of following action. This was a test of constraints knowledge and knowing how to maneuver two sets of controls at the same time. If all goes well, I plan to move forward with larger scenes with even more characters and such to keep track of.
https://youtu.be/2SaTMprS8fM
For my other animation focus projects, I have continued blocking out animations for Advanced Production NPCs, and their different personalities. I began work with the new custom character rigs being produced for the game. A different personality was the focus of this week, and I have compiled a few blockouts. These will be further tweaked as the rig is updated, and I have established a better idea of how the respective personalities will look later on.
As an animator for the project known as My Little Tavern Shop, my work will be based around creating the non-playable character movements, as well as rigging characters where necessary. For the first weeks, and first sprint, I was tasked with blocking out the basic movements for multiple different personalities. Another task was reviewing the rigging lessons, and applying them to teh custom characters being created for the project. With a variety of characters utilizing the same types of forms, the key is to establish a unique set of movements that both correspond with each other, as well as fall in line with the overall feel of the project. For each personality, the base animations we picked as a team were: walking, standing idle, sitting idle, sitting down, standing up, drinking, and more what may factor in at a later time.
To start off, I began working with the personality type: Nervous. I blocked out the scenes, and proceeded to smooth them out and finesse where I could. As the custom character rigs we will use for the final product were not quite ready, I used the Jack rig from the Bodymech rig pack as a substitute and practice.
The following personality types I am ans will be working on are the Happy and Angry personalities. With the base of the new rig now at our disposal, blocking out and examples for animations will be using such, until finalization. So far, blocking out has begun on the Happy personality animations. Not many issues have arisen since work has begun, aside from simply getting used to the controls for the new rig.
This week I have worked on a couple of animations focused on testing some of the character rigs I put together previously. The first animation is a simple walk-type cycle with simple joint articulation. The second tests out a model with more joints to play with. It is also a walk cycle, but with joint systems and movements closer to humanoid skeletons.
For the first animation, the inspiration was working with the character
as floating around with less gravity. This is more of a moonwalk type
cycle, exploring realistic movements. Since this was a fairly new
experience with these types of characters, it was interesting to find
the differences in animation workflow. Some aspects were much easier to
pinpoint and alter for the overall animation. The changes to come will
certainly come easier and faster going forward.
https://youtu.be/6cZkwVdNaR0
The second animation will take some time to finesse, and will likely be a learning experience for future projects with bigger and better models. This animation uses a robotic mech that has a fairly good range of movement, but proved tricky to become acquainted with. The first thing I worked on was the legs and feet. Once I got a decent idea of how they would work, other moving parts fell in line as far as adding weight. I want to do some more research and reference for these types of models in the weeks to come.
https://youtu.be/ctU8GhbmewM
In addition to the main portfolio animations, I have also blocked out and somewhat splined some animations for Advanced Production. These are practice game animations meant for NPCs. While the official models are not finished yet, these concepts will be helpful for when the time comes. These animations will be based around a common personality, this one in particular being "nervous." There are three animation I worked on, them being a walk cycle, a standing idle, and a sitting idle. All of these use the BodyMech Jack rig.
