3 Walks Through Space (Limp, Heartbroken and Joyful Child)

For this exercise we have to complete the following: Excerpt from brief: Animate three short walks across the frame 1) A person walking with a bad limp. 2) A young child full of the joys of life. 3) A thoughtful or rejected lover. Remember to act out this sequence to help you to establish the timing and the key poses. film yourself to create video reference for action analysis. One of the first videos I have been shown for this exercise was this: 100 Different Ways to Walk (Animation Reference) - Kevin Parry

This is a very entertaining example of the shear variety of walks a character can have and sometimes the tiniest change of details can be the biggest change in character. This is highlighted in a workshop video by Richard Williams, on the difference between a 'masculine' walk and a 'feminine' walk:

I decided to refresh my memory of walk cycles, using the Alan Becker tutorial video, I researched last year: Alan Becker Tutorials- Animating Walk Cycles

I found that this video was really helpful in helping me achieve the impression of a 2D walk through space, in last year's module.

One important difference between the walk cycles I am about to embark upon, compared to the walk cycle I did last year, is the fact that last year's activity was completed using a frame by frame drawn animation technique. For more efficiency with time, and relevant industry style animation preparation, Johny has pushed for me to begin utilising 2D character rigs, within ToonBoom, for quicker workflow, (seeing as the Wall Climb and Throw exercise took me so long). Johny has recommended that I research current TV animation studios (and shows) that utlise ToonBoom rigs for their animation. Therefore I decided to watch this clip of Danger Mouse (2015) and Pip Ahoy. Danger Mouse (2015) - (FreeMantle Media Kids & Family Entertainment)

Pip Ahoy! - (Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick)

I have noticed through a short analysis of these videos that there are a few factors to pull out from this animation style. Firstly it is not as much to my taste in terms of quality. I realise that this is a technique that I must learn to live with and employ but there is just something a little more mechanical and slightly lifeless where rigged puppet animation is involved. A good example of what I mean is this gif. that compares the old and traditional hand-drawn opening titles to the Simpsons, compared to the modern-day computer generated opening titles they have been animating with in more recent series.

There is just something a little bit off about the animation in the bottom half of the gif. compared to the animation at the top. Far less principles like follow through action, drag and weight are being applied. There is no exaggeration in the in between frames whatsoever and it just feels too neatly cut and clinical. The background has become a lot more grounded in reality, with no fish-eye effect. Even the colours are more muted and a bit washed out, but before I go off on a tangent I realise that this may perhaps just be my own personal opinion. At the end of the day, I must get to grips with this industry standard style of efficient animation whether I like it or not, to make myself more employable. In order to get my head around rigging, I have been using the help of these particular tutorials. I have found them very helpful in setting up my own rig.

Unfortunately we have not yet had the time in formal lectures to be given guidance in ToonBoom rigging, this is understandable, though as many of our tutors do not yet know how to properly animate in ToonBoom. For now, I have to teach myself rigging with a combination of YouTube tutorials.

Baring all of my research in mind, I must still start these animation tasks the same way I always do... These are the bios I have written for each of the walks:

LIMP CHARACTER BIO: Name Ardal Jambon Amundsen Gender Male Age 10-11 Ethnicity White Family Mother-Niamh, Father-Einar, Sister-Caoimhe (Kee-va), Nan-Tilly Cultural Background Irish/Scot Celtic and Norwegian Intelligence Lacking Occupation Student Religion Catholic Sexual Orientation Straight though he doesn't understand what that really means Secrets Hates most typical child activities finds far more solace in tidying his room to the musical stylings of Nina Simone Fears/Phobias Mess, Button-up shirts (hates the touching the buttons), the Dark, Most stories about Hell he's been told by his grandmother, school bullies, neighbourhood bullies, teachers and teaching staff bullies, family bullies, a blocking off his mother and has a general social disposition combined with some PTSD-like childhood anxiety Fave Music Rock (he says) Nina Simone, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin Sense of Humour Fine to have a laugh at anything but is 99% the butt of his friends and family's jokes. Sarcasm and most forms of wit are usually lost on him Adrenaline Moments Beating the record for time taken to clean his room, Getting to school on time unscathed by bullies, any time he is not being humiliated by either himself or peers Physical Description Lanky and tall for his age Physical Disabilities Has some sort of Calamity James magnetism towards accidents and humiliations. Generally quite weak. Has Dyspraxia Character Bio: Ardal Jambon Amundsen is a 10-going on-11 year old boy who attends St Holy Mother All Saints All Virgins Roman Catholic Primary School SHMASAV RCP (sh-mah-ss-av arr-see-pee). He lives within walking distance to the school, with his Mother: Niamh Amundsen (who is of Irish decent), his Father: Einar Amundsen (who is of Scottish and Norwegian decent), his older sister: Caoimhe (who must be of Hellish decent) and his Nan: Tilly (who is probably on a decent into madness). He may be raised catholic but his grades are unholy, as he is at the bottom of his class, as well as the social hierarchy with teachers, students and caretakers alike all unifying together in their combined ill-opinion of Ardal. This might be because of how pathetic he can truly be at times, at least in there eyes, as he's always either humiliating or hurting himself in attempts to go about his daily life. The only sanctuary in Ardal's life away from his angry, work-tired, nurse of a mother, his high-functioning alcoholic of a father, his b*tch of a sister and his senile wreck of a grandmother, is in his bedroom. Where he can secretly listen to the soul queens of yesteryear, like Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin in peace, whilst he takes joy in organising his shoes by colour, (in correspondence to the rainbow colours upon 'Dark Side Of The Moon'-Pink Floyd album Ardal's Dad gave him when he lied about "loving" Rock music). Because of his unnaturally tall height and magnetism for trouble, whether Ardal likes it or not he will always stand out from the crowd to be judged. So will he ever actually ever overcome his turmoil-prone ways? Will years of suppressing all of his anxieties that he's really too young and thick to understand ever emerge? If so, as a violent animal? or neutered House Pet? Will he learn that perhaps he can finally get people to like him? or perhaps even learn that for that to happen he has to like himself? Most likely he's just gonna coast for a while and keep getting into very humorous situations... at least for us. HEARTBROKEN LOVER CHARACTER BIO: Name David Lorni Gender Male

Age 35 Ethnicity White Family None Cultural Background Italian Intelligence Naive Religion N/A

Sexual Orientation Pansexual Secrets In love with a Florist Fears Being Single forever

Fave Music Orchestral Romance and Tango Sense of Humour Corny pick up lines Adrenaline Moments Pulling a senorita Physical Description Tall and Slim Physical Disabilities N/A David Lorni is a lonely and hopeless romantic that lives in England but originally hails from Italy. Unfortunatley not well endowed with much intellect, wit or good looks. He has no idea who his family is, (To add insult to injury, he doesn't know who gave him these genes). As an open pansexual, David falls in love with anyone who pays him the slightest bit of attention. His one fear and motivation is to not die alone. In order to defeat his demons, he has opened up a flower shop, with hopes that he might learn from the lovers that come in to buy romantic gestures in the form of floral gifts. The true apple of his eye is his ex-employee who used to happily pay attention to him when he was giving her a wage. She resigned from her job at the flower shop after David kept on coming on too strong with crass pick up lines, he's watched from pick up artists on YouTube. He is lovelorn and self-pitying - He's David Lorni. JOYFUL CHILD CHARACTER BIO: Name Glynn Evans Gender Male Age 6 Ethnicity White Family Mum, Dad, Dog Cultural Background Welsh Intelligence Medium standard for his age but joyfully ignorant Religion C of E Sexual Orientation N/A Secrets Is most likely on the spectrum for something but hasn't realised it yet Fears Night Time Fave Music Pop Sense of Humour The corking jokes from his fave episodes of The Tweenies Adrenaline Moments BMX Physical Description Weedy Physical Disabilities N/A Glynn Evans is an innocent, bright-eyed, Welsh boy who lives with his stay-at-home Mum: Glenda and his mechanic father: Tom. He is six years old and lives in an ex-mining town. His parents and everyone else at his school are very much aware and depressed by the economic failure their hometown is in. Glynn is blissfully ignorant to all of the depression around him abd is in his own little world of joy. Together with his staffy dog, Barri, the two play the day away, mainly on his rusty BMX that he calls: "The Pendragon". He loves listening to pop music or watching The Tweenies but fears the nighttime and longs for the morning. Will he ever wake up to the reality of his hometown? Baring these bios in mind, I have sketched out storyboards to help me visualise my ideas and translate into reference video.

I firstly went about how I always do, where these exercises are concerned, and captured the observation for my animation in the form of a reference video: Reference videos: Limp:

Heartbroken:

Joyful child:

Bar Sheets: I have drawn out bar sheets to give me an idea of the timings with these videos. I find that it always helps Limp Walk:

After learning from the mistakes of my Wall Climb animation. I am going to use this program properly and create myself a proper character rig, I used the elevation of my character turnaround to help me do this:

I realised I had to change the position of the z axis by 0.001 coordinates in order to fix the rig which, (once all layers were parented) ended up looking like this:

As you can see in the videos below, the rig worked quite nicely. The only issue that was propping up to me was the annoying sliding of the foot placement, unlike a rig in Maya, the torso, hips and legs all have to be kept on separate pegs in order to be individually manipulated. They are all grouped together on one giant master peg. The issue comes with the hierarchy of the rig on each leg, the pivot comes from the thigh rather than the foot so when the rest of the body moved forward, I found issues with the foot staying still, As I had to move the thigh component... which is where the pivot lies.

Limp Walk (rig test 1)

I slowed down how fast Ardal was taking his steps in the first test of this walk. I also added in the inital facial features and tried to make the limp look inconsistant, in line with my bar sheets. Limp Walk (rig test 2)

The animation was starting to take shape by this point, but I had to change the speed at which he returned to an upright position, because there were not enough in between frames and it looked far too fast.

Limp Walk (submission)

I found that adding facial expressions and directing the eyes in different spots around the screen really helped make the character look like less of an automaton and more of an actual human. Heart Broken:

For this particular animation activity, I have decided that I shall slightly change the design of the character for each of the three walks. The aspect of the design in particular that I am changing is the hair style. I have decided to do this because I know that the hair component of the character rig can easily be changed but also I feel as though I can easily display the personalty of the individual, This separates the characters in a distinct way, despite the fact that they all look identical in every other way. I have also made another slight change to the rig by changing the torso asset of the rig. I felt that I couldn't create a clear enough silhouette when using the upright torso asset, so therefore I bend him over into a hunch. I was pleased with my initial result:

I managed to slightly adjust the foot placement from the first attempt to the second attempt and I tried my best to fix the follow through action on the long hair piece as it didn't look quite right, but this was still looking a bit odd.

Other facial features were manipulated on this rig so that David looked as though his nose was sniffling upon each step. I decided to cut out the motion of David ripping up a love letter, like in my reference footage, due to time restraints. I realise that it would be more ideal if I could've included everything from my reference footage but unfortunately I was too concerned with getting all of these walks finished, seeing as I was behind schedule.

Joyful Child:

I found when looking at my reference material that there was a spring in my step so to speak, reminiscent of a double bounce walk or rather, more closely resembled a skip. Taking advice from this page in Richard Williams' Animatior's Survival Kit, I have used the example diagram as the basis for understanding my walk.

I drew out all of the key poses from the book and then played them back in twos.

However I found that this moved far too quickly, obviously I must add in in between frames.

This played back far more smoothly and I was able to set up my rig to begin following this example.

When I first copied this out so that the rig was pose to posed with each frame of the helper animation, I realised I definitely needed to add more keyframes.

This was the version in which in betweens were added, but there was still something a little bit off about it all. I realised that this was because I had not added any tweening to the animation, I was happy when the tweening added a more fluid motion to how the arms swung through their arcs.

Final submission version of joyful child:

Overall I am pleased with how pose to pose made this animation quite easy to achieve. However what I would improve upon, if I had more time would be to focus more on the facial features and perhaps add an action in between the walk, like how I did with the Limp walk.