Second draft of keyframes for lip-syncing animation

This time I decided to use Adobe Photoshop instead of Adobe Flash to design the keyframes as I think its easier to edit any mistakes and you can make a softer brush:

Lipsyncing and acting: Keyframe first draft

We were given a random piece of speech from an unknown source to act out and animate, eventually into 3D. But first we had to make key frames in 2D to see how to see would work and plan out the characters movement:

Simple stickman layer:

Stickman and draw-over:

Final 1st draft:

Zombie pushing box animation

Being unable to keep the hands still in this animation really makes it hard to keep the movement flowing and give the impression of force:

Zombie jumping and getting up animations

I uploaded the 2 animations I already did again but removed the NURBS curves so the character can be seen more clearly:

Pushing box animation

This is not a smooth animation, its mostly there for the key frames, and it will work as a guide for when I make the zombie do it in maya:

Zombie getting up animation

In this animation I wasn't sure how to keep the hands stuck to the box as the zombie hoists himself off the box. The hands move if the body move and there's no way of putting them back in the exact same place. So I made him get up without using his hands (i acted this out, it is possible):

Zombie jumping animation

This is my first attempt at animating in maya. This is one of 3 animations I will be doing with the zombie rig. I followed my 2D test I made earlier in the blog:

Jumping animation redo

I decided to redo the jumping animation from a 2D side view instead as I don't think from a front view I was really getting an idea of body pose for reference:

Standing up from chair animation

Jumping animation (development 2)

Jumping animation (development)

For this movement test i decided to use myself for a human reference. I filmed myself and gathered the keyframes. I then drew over these keyframes in flash, but the 'inbetween frames' I will draw myself:

The video clip of me jumping:

The keyframes I collected:

The animation so far:

Zombie carrying boxes (improved)

Same again, a large heavy, box and a light, small box but improvements on the weight distribution and shoulder positioning:

Zombie pulling and pushing large box

More zombie poses

Crawling

 Determined walk - Angled view

 Determined walk - Front view

Head turn animation

Arm drop animation

Zombie angry and happy poses (redo)

I improved my poses significantly by curving the figure more. Bending the back and shoulders added much more life to the character by getting rid of the robotic symmetry:

Zombie carrying boxes

We were set to make another 2 poses. One holding a heavy, large box and one holding a light, small box. I think I need to redo these as they just don't have enough life in them. But they are a good first attempt.

Zombie rig poses

A character rig from Hotel Transylvania had been released recently for the public to play around with. We were set a task to create a angry pose and a happy pose for the zombie. However, the poses seemed to be a little too stiff and inhuman. I need to act out some poses to get a better idea at what the pose should look like:

Head turn and arm drop key frames

Another couple of simple movements but instead of creating a smooth animation we have drawn the key frames. Here we have a robot turning its head and an arm dropping to the hip:

Ball rolling down and up a hill animation

We a revisiting some of our first animation tasks of the course to make sure we still remember the principles of animation:

Character design and turn around

Into the second year of animation and right back into character design, as for 3D characters still need to be drawn first in order to create blueprints for the model. We were asked to try out some character development and I chose to create this farmer: