Riggins And Animating A Dog After Effects

When animating a jump, the first thing I did was create the key poses for the action. The jump contained five key poses, which are:

1) Resting pose

2) Crouch/Anticipation

3) Jump up

4)Fall down

5) Landing

Blake_jump_01.mov

When shown together, the key poses form the base upon which to further refine to create a completed animation.

Blake_jump_02

The finished movement has additional details, such as the legs straightening before Blake leaves the ground, which makes the sequence more believable as it shows the power being transferred from the ground into the legs and then into the upwards motion of the jump.  Without the legs straightening, it would look more like he floats into the air rather than pushing off from the ground with his legs. This sequence also utilises squash and stretch on the push off from the ground. It is extremely fast, but one leg stretches as Blake leaves the ground. This helps to give the illusion of speed as he travels upwards. There is also follow through as he lands, when his body stops, but his head and arm continue to move for a short distance. This, like the straightening of the legs, helps to show the forces working on the character's body and the force of the landing itself.

Dog_walk_01.mov

I began looking at quadrupedal walks and decided to try animating a dog walk cycle. I first animated the leg movement, and when I felt that basic movement was right, I continued and added additional movement.

At first I experienced slight difficulty in animating two pairs of legs as opposed to one, as it was difficult to get them to move together in a way which looked right. In the end I worked out that the 2 legs on one side of the body step together but just out of sync, so the back foot makes contact with the ground shortly before the front foot on the same side of the body does. This knowledge made the process much easier

Dog_walk_03.mov

In this version, I added hip and shoulder movement, as well as secondary action on the tail.

The addition of these elements help the cycle look much less stiff and mechanical and more natural.

Running_dog_01.mov

After the relative success of the quadruped walk cycle, I decided to also try a run cycle.

As a first attempt at a quadruped run, I feel that the basic movement is correct and works well. However, it could be greatly improved from this.

For example, both forelegs and hindlegs move at the exact same time as each other. This mirroring of the limbs makes the animation look  unrealistic, as in a real dog's run one leg is always just behind the other in terms of the movement, and so perfect twinning like this does not happen.

Flying_Blake.mov

This short clip was a result of just messing around with Blake, making him fly like a bird. I am happy with the arm and wrist movement, as the overlapping action and follow-through makes the movement very smooth and flowing rather than jerky or stiff. If I were to improve this clip, I would try and add some follow through to the legs and feet. At the moment, the feet remain stationary while the rest of blake moves, making it look like his feet are tied or shuck to something rather than looking like he is free-flying.

Riggins And Animating A Dog After Effects

Source: https://www.sites.google.com/site/anim2002riggingandanimating/week-05

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