The Last Scene

I'm trying to get everything wrapped up as I'm coming close to the deadline of my assignment, so I'm working on my last scene, because it's the only one that isn't stepped out yet, so I started yesterday at stepping everything. I wanted to cycle my walk cycle, where you animate two steps, then cycle it with offset in the graph editor, so you don't have to animate 200 frames. Well I tried that and everytime I tried to cycle it  something would go wrong, and I attempted this alot of times. In the end I gave up and thought I am just going to animate each step, which is probably a waste of time but, I couldn't figure out to cycle and didn't want to waste time on this. I can add that to my list of things, I need to learn and practise that over summer. But anyway this is what I have so far, it's still a bit steppy in some places, but I think if I sort the legs out it'll be on it's way to being finished.

Preparing for the Jump

So I've been working on the part of my animation, where the main character has just came through the rooftop fire exit. and now he's preparing himself to jump. I really had no reference for this part of my animation so I went out and did some reference. It took me a while to think what I  actually wanted the character to do. And then I thought it would be good if he was limbering up, so you know that this is a hard thing for him to do, he's not used to jumping off rooftops. Below you can see a reference video of my friend limbering up for the task...



And below is my progress so far with animating this reaction...

Fixing Things

I've went back to my very first scene, as I'm close to the polishing stage, or splining stage whatever you would like to call it. And I'm just checking everything is looking correct. There was a few things with my first scene that weren't quite right, which was the timing, arm ghosting through the banister and knee's pointing the wrong way. So I've fixed them now there's still a few more things I have to do, such as adjust the poses slightly, and facial animation, and pose fingers. But here's a play-bast of Scene one so far.....

The Roof Jump

After the reaction, comes the "Roof Jump" I have been working on the timing of this Jump it is quite tricky to figure out because I don't have reference videos as that would have been to dangerous to film. So I have my friend doing some reference videos of jumping across a n "invisible" gap, well the ground. You can see the reference videos just below.






And I have also been using Richard Williams "The Animator's Survival Guide" to help with the run up and jump because it has 2-3 pages on poses, I've added a picture of the poses I have been using to help me animate, below.

I have also been looking at Youtube videos, of Roof Jumps, mostly these two videos below are very helpful to show what the arms and legs are doing when the character is in the air.





I planned out some simple poses also, so I could start blocking out the poses, and work out the timing of the Jump, Here's some quick pose drawings below.

There not the final poses set in stone,because I will probably keep changing the poses until I'm happy that they're perfect. Here is my progress so far of my Jump. I have been making many changes, and tweaking the time for the past day, I like the timing so far.




And while the main character is getting ready to jump, the other character is running right behind him, trying to catch him, so I have been working on that whilst animating the jump, I have just been using a basic run cycle for this. This is my progress so far, below



I've been working on this jump non stop, to get it right, I want it perfect, the timing, the poses everything, I must have started over about 8-9 times now, and again I keep saying it looks right until it doesn't. So I think at this point I have got near enough to finishing off the stepped faze. After watching the whole chase scene from Total Recall (2012) about a dozen times and pausing each frame and copying it, I think the jump is becoming more life like. I mean I still need to tweak the arms, legs, back and landing pose, but I think the timing is almost there.



Now that I've almost finished tweaking the jump, I'm working on the other character, who is chasing the main character, but won't jump off the roof after him. instead just tries to grab him. This is what I so far....



More progress with the main characters stumble from the jump, and him picking himself back on, I've been working on this most of the day and tweaked it several times, but I think it's quite close to being finished, obviously I still need to spline my animation.


From my storyboard, I had the main character get up and turn back to the chaser and give a sarcastic wave, to say "haha got away" so I have been working out some ways he would do that and this is my progress so far...

I used a reference video to plan out the steps for the wave, and below you can see the poses I have drawn from the video.

Reactions

I have been working on, the main characters reaction after he nearly skidded off of the roof, and when he hears the Roof door slam, he quickly turns his head to see who it was.



Above is some simple reference of expressions and how I would do a quick head turn. Below is my progress so far of this part of the animation.



So I am still working on the reaction of the character hearing the bang, and then discovering that it's the guy who has been chasing him, so I'm up to the part where the "Chaser" has started running towards our main character and he has to think of what to do next, which in his case is too jump over to the other roof. The character really doesn't want to do this but it's the only way he can get away, so I want to show him scared and him thinking about not doing. Below is reference video of me doing the reaction.



Before animating, I drew out the poses so I could work out the timing, here's the drawings below.

This is what I have so far with his reaction of seeing the guy at the door, below

More Reference Video's

You can never have enough reference videos to help you animate, I have just taken some reference videos of  myself as the girl after dropping the boxes. I wanted to show her annoyed and eventually picking the boxes up as the main character won't help her pick them up.




I just continued doing the same thing, just changing things slightly, I like at 22 seconds, I do a slight head shake, which I think would be a nice subtle movement for the character. Here is the second reference video I took, pretty much the same concept, just slightly different movements.

Camera Angles

Camera Angles is what I struggle with most, I've been looking at action films such as Total Recall and Kick-Ass to see what kind of shots they use. For my first scene of my animation, I have came up with these shots, they're very rough and I will be making them look alot smoother when I get to the polishing stage of my production. I have also took my original storyboards in to consideration, because there was quite a few good frames in there, just some didn't work to well.




For my next scene which is the rooftop scene, I wanted the scene to be alot like Kick-Ass, so I have took some screen shots of the angles I like and what order they'll be in.

I've been working on the Camera angles for the second scene, I only have 3 at the moment, because I am still working on the skid. Ignore the run cycle, because it is still a "Work in Progress".




This is for after the scene below it's missing a camera angle, where the camera looks over the edge of the building when he almost falls off.




This is what I have so far, there just maya playblast simply put together, but this is how I want the camera angles to look like, I am gonna add in some environments obviously for establishing shots, because it looks very confusing at the moment.



I'm still working on the camera angles, whilst animating, this is what I have so far, I think it matches the speed and doesn't look too fast cutting. I have used 6 cameras total. And the animation is still in the stepping process, as I am still changing things.