After doing the 2D/3D walk cycle and lip sync I decided to create 3D walk cycle and lip sync. I found 3D animation more enjoyable as I prefer doing it digitally and not draw each frame by hand. Since I'm using Maya software for modelling, rendering and now animating I would like to have the opportunity to create another 3D walk cycle and lip sync from scratch. Most of my work I have done has been 2D work, so this is another reason I'm creating 3D walk cycle and lip sync. This will give me a better understanding of the basics and improve my mistakes from past work. (I will also add 2D work from weekly tasks)

The video walk cycle I will be using for this brief will be an old video from week 1 of my classmate, were I created this walk cycle in 2D. But I want to recreate the walk cycle in 3D as I found her walk quite interesting, such as the bounce, hunched forward a bit etc.

I have taken out the four different poses and the frames, this is to ease my work when creating the walk cycle in Maya later. From the contact pose to the pass pose there are 9 frames in-between, her walk cycle is a lot slower as she takes bigger step and takes more time to go from the down pose to passing pose. Looking at her position her back is hunched forward a bit and arms are relaxed. There is also a Follow through and Overlapping action as her hair bounces, as she is on her way down her hair bounces up, if I possibly can find a rig where the character has a ponytail I will try to attempt that into my walk cycle. Her walk gives her personality as the exaggeration gives her some bounce when she walks which makes her walk dynamic.

I found a free rig from highend3d that has a female character with pony tail that can be adjusted. Even though the face rigs are separated such as left eye lid and right eye lid etc this rigged character has everything I need to create a walk cycle including the Follow through and Overlapping action.

Overall this has been the most difficult walk cycle for me so far but looking at the video I think I have gotten better with the timing. The timing used to be something I had issues with before, even if the final walk cycle isn't completely accurate, I learnt how to take out the different poses, analyse the posture, add exaggeration, timing etc. Something new I got to try was the Follow through and Overlapping action added for the pony tail, it makes the character more realistic. And trying out different rigged character made me analyse things differently, such as the body proportions.

This was a fun experience and challenging at the same time, due to everyone has a different walk cycle it will always be something challenging and learning. In the future I would improve the timing in the arms and understand the motion of them, how the hand, lower arm and upper body are kept separate as it were an elastic band. I could have used better references (video), I didn't really think it through as I only had a side view and not different perspectives. This prevented me to analyse the exaggeration properly.

This semester has been a very fun and learning, there were some stuff I enjoyed more than others. Animating either 2D or 3D was my first time, and I had no idea how to start to develop my own animation. At the beginning of the course I was a bit confused with the software, development, poses, lip sync and other stuff. But my experience in this module has given me a better understanding within all those areas.

I got to try several different ideas such as walk cycle, lip sync, throw animation, camera, arm animation etc. I also tried other stuff which was anticipation that was a 2D throw animation and follow through and overlapping which was the 3D walk cycle for this brief. I have enjoyed doing these practical work as I got to use different materials in both 2D and 3D.

I liked the idea to begin the module with 2D, even though I prefer 3D. But starting with 2D gave me a better understanding to observe the human behavior. I learnt this through research by drawings, references and develop my own methods, I could eventually take out my own timing, poses, exaggeration etc. This was thanks to the module, references and other research in both 2D and 3D. Once I reached this area, I could do this outside the lectures independently and do my own research, a few examples: follow through and overlapping, old lady walk cycle and throw animation. As I got to do this process independently, I noticed my mistakes and weaker areas, within lip sync and walk cycle it was the timing. I was bad at timing each frame which made the animation look unnatural and this was very frustrating. Weeks went by and I got better at planning and found my own methods, take out each pose - create a sketch and write down key frames to ease my process.

The module has developed my skills and knowledge in various areas. Comparing how I was the first week and now is a huge difference, I can finally create my own walk cycle, lip animation and other stuff. This allowed me to work independently for this brief and other module that included animation, this would be animating objects and create a running character. Even though my final walk cycle and lip sync isn't perfect I have improved in all areas and taken the mistakes with me from past weeks. And I have other areas to improve on which is the timing in the lip animation and understand the arm motion.

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