Project 1: Walk, Run and Action Cycle

Here is the brief...

Walk Cycle

To begin with, I first created a walk-cycle using Blender's animation feature which you can see below. To do this I had been given an already rigged person to do it with so all I had to do was move and rotate the body parts into place and keyframe at different points in time! I made the foot step forward by raising it on the Z axis and moving it forward on the y-axis, I did the opposite to the other side of the body and gave the hips some swing and made the person bob up and down so it looked even more realistic, I also moved the arms in the opposite direction to the legs as that's what typically happens when you walk! I then copied all the keyframes I created then pasted them on the opposite x-axis therefore I pretty much mirrored the walk on the other side and after that I let the animation repeat itself and now I have a fully working walk-cycle!

Run Cycle 

A run cycle is pretty similar to a walk cycle, however the movements are faster and more dramatic. For example in t he walk cycle when you lifted the leg up it didn't leave the ground much but with a run-cycle its almost like you're kicking the leg with the power the walk didn't have. The only reason I can think why a person would run is desperation.Late to class? Run! Getting chased? Run! Your friend needs help? RUNNNN! This helped me realise that a run had to be more intense than a walk not just because they're faster but also the way the body moved. I did the same thing as the walk cycle with the key frames and copied them and flipped them to make it mirrored.

Action Cycle

With the action-cycle I was having a pretty hard time determining what the action would be. I wanted to make it personal rather than just doing anything as it would resonate with me better and perhaps it would help me with creating it as I would have experience and I would know the precise actions of what you would need to do! I settled with a side kick because when I was a younger I used to do the Korean combat style called Taekwondo and I competed at events many times! To do this I researched it on Google and YouTube to find some references and I did a few myself so I could see with my own eyes what my body parts do whilst I'm performing one and this helped a lot, especially with the arms! I keyframed the different poses I created and added a few extra in to make the animation look extra smooth and then like I did with the other 2 I copied them and mirrored them so both legs were kicking at different times! To create the animation, I used the 'Pose to pose' technique as I found that it was the easiest way I could do it!

Evaluation

If I'm being completely honest this really tested my patience with Blender as at first I couldn't get to grips with the process of animation and it didn't really help that I missed the first 7 weeks of the course due to attending a different college however with some help from my tutors I managed to create this project and even though it may not be the best I am still proud of it as a week ago I couldn't even make a walk cycle very well. Therefore I think one of my strengths is my resilience but I feel like if I did this again I could improve it by making it a bit more complex!