Week 4 - Start Animating

This week Sam talk to us about the presentation we would have ready for week 6. In the presentation we would talk to the rest of our class about our idea and the 4 animations we are doing each. The presentation will be informal and not require a power point, but however we will present our blogs with all our work on them. One big task for the presentation is to have two animations done each (one idle and one other animation). With no animation done as of yet, this will be a objective for me.

Also this week Sam showed us (me and Krzysztof) a ninja rig that maybe would be useful for us for our animation. When having a look at the rig we found the rig we were already using before was easier to control. However one element we liked from the ninja rig was one he was all black. So going back into our original rig and we both changed the colour of the rig to make him more ninja looking. After doing this I started to tweak my idle pose a bit to make him resemble Krzysztof's ninja character (due to us both animating the same character).

I took elements from Krzysztof's idle pose however I made changes, so this will make it look like it's the same character, but it should also show the different variations of the character that we can take advantage of.

Before I began  my animation I needed to film and collect primary research. The first piece of footage I shot was me acting out the idle pose for my animation. In the animation I will have my character almost crouching leaning forward and then stand upright. Here below is the video.

Once I filmed my primary research I started working on the animation. With this idle I would have the characters body lowered slightly (almost crouching) then he would stand up straight. How ever after showing the animation to my team mates, they felt I could have the character doing his idle another way. Instead have him starting in the upright pose for the whole idle animation. Also in the new idle the ninja would be holding the sword against his belt with his left hand. So from the idle he can easily go into his walk cycle and then the next animation sequence I will have him with his right hand grab the sword to hold in defence. So this meant redoing the another video for the idle.