1 . Definition of Stylized Walk
Our task this week is to do a stylized walk, similar to happy or sad walking, skipping or sneaking. A stylized walk is a character walking with emotion or state, which is more exaggerated than ordinary walking, and also reflects the character’s character.
Usually in cartoon, people walk according to the different shape and the needs of the plot, and have different action styles. Any design about walking can not regulate the designer’s design in a regular way. This should not be dogmatic and model like. All need to be based on the designer to the animation plot and character characteristics, walking action for reasonable imagination and artistic modeling, when necessary, can exaggerate the character characteristics of the character on the action description. And the image is reflected in the design of the action details processing and time distribution, designed with different modeling styles, exaggerated dynamic and speed rhythm changes in the walking action.
2 . Stylized Walk According to the Characters
Different gender, different age identity and body shape have different characteristics in the shape change and movement rhythm of walking: when the girl walks easily, she raises her chest and hips, and the pace is light, and the crotch has obvious movement from top to bottom to left, forming the track of the eight character arc line, which reflects the characteristics of women. Fat people walk because of their large belly, body will be back, fat inside thighs make him have to walk separately, and the pace of walking is relatively slow, especially when lifting legs, the number of frames will be less, and the number of frames will increase significantly when falling, which can reflect the heavier pace of fat people walking. The old man walked with a loose pace and bent over. The thief in the animation, walking light, is usually in the shape of the foot point
3 . Animation Principles in Stylized Walk Cycle
- timing
- arcs
- slow-in & slow-down
- pose-to-pose
- anticipation
- follow-through and overlapping action
4 . Reference
I was going to do a sneaky walk animation this time, so I found some videos on YouTube as reference and edited them together to observe the decomposition of the action. My requirement is that I can realize the part of the action that it wants to emphasize, that is, the performer can perform the difference between it and ordinary walking, plus some exaggerated movements, then I think he can be used as a reference.
Here is my preference footage.
I also found some storyboards drawn by animators as references to make this personality walk more cartoon and exaggerative.Actually, I didn’t refer to their rhythms and movements. I just wanted to know where their exaggeration was. For example, in the following pictures, there was a big range in the trunk and legs.
In fact, the most important thing about sneaky walk is the arc formed by the waist and neck of the contact frame, and the left and right shaking of the body drives the swing of the head and neck. This is my static and dynamic storyboard based on action decomposition.
The most important thing to find a reference is to find a reference from different angles, which is more accurate when doing animation, so I found a three quarter side and full side reference.
Reference try not to find the completed 3D animation or 2D animation, because it may be regarded as plagiarism of other people’s works. If you find the reference of real people or interpret a paragraph by yourself, plus subjective exaggeration and amplification, it will be much better.
Here is my storyboard.
5 . Process
Step 1 Familiar with rigs and controllers
This week’s course talked about good rigs and bad rigs. In fact, for me, I prefer to use that kind of controller that contains less controllers, but each controller can meet my needs and adjust the whole character. In this way, I won’t have to adjust too many controllers for each frame, and it will save a lot of energy and time. In fact, at the beginning, I took the cowboy model that I did the whole body walking animation last week, but I found that this model controller is too complex, and it is very difficult to adjust actions.
Still, I tried the animation of the cowboy walking, but because it was very time-consuming, I only made a short animation.
In fact, I am not very satisfied with this animation, because the whole action is relatively rigid. Later, I chose a relatively simple model, which was a little girl, and found that her skeleton binding was relatively simple, and her expression had a controller, so it was enough.
The character’s hand is IK, so I just need to adjust the wrist to adjust the movement of the whole hand. Actually, I haven’t found any error in this controller at the beginning. When I started to key the animation frame, I found that her skeleton did not follow its pole vector direction, which means that it was always difficult for me to achieve the action I wanted by adjusting the x-y-z axis of translate.
Step 2 Blocking
In fact, stylized walking is the same as an ordinary walking. I key frame at the contact pose, extreme pose and breakdown pose. Here is my step-by-step process.
The key to the first frame of contact is the effect of toes and waist. The main attention is to tilt the body to the right and back and the feeling of tiptoe. The process of raising the foot is faster and the foot is slower, creating a feeling of light and slow landing of the sole of the foot.
Extreme pose is an action of leaning forward. This action should adjust the relationship between the two feet to ensure the stability of the center of gravity.
Break down pose is an action of paying attention to the squash and stretch of the body, that is, the height of the body, showing a downward and then upward curve.
Later, I found that the swing of the skirt was too small. In fact, during the snaking process, the hip twist was very exaggerated. I adjusted the range of the hip controller again. At this time, I actually know that the animation of the left hand is not particularly correct, but it is difficult for me to do it because the action in the reference is blocked.
I keep the character moving forward and make sure there’s no slippage.
Relatively speaking, the range of the hand does not need to be placed very low, that is, the overall high, small amplitude.
step 3 Fingers and Facial Animation
Later, I gave her a little girl’s feeling, that is, there was a subtle upturned change on her fingers. At the same time, let her eyes move to the left and right. When her body tilts to the left, her eyes look to the right when she leans to the right, and looks to the left when she leans to the right. It’s more in line with sneaking’s furtive expression. Finally, it adds the bouncing feeling of hat and hair when landing on the foot to increase the lively type and animation interest.
This time I tried a different approach. I used to adjust the movements of my feet first, and then I added the actions of the fight and body in the keyframes. This time, I take them as a whole and adjust them as a whole posture at the position of each key frame. The advantage of this is that I can compare with the reference more conveniently. The disadvantage is that once there are too many frames keyed, the action will not be smooth enough.
Final Vision
Summary
In the process of reference animation, I found that the advantage of it is that I can compare the action very accurately. The situation of stuck will be less, and the rhythm is relatively clear. It will not be too fast or slow, which is convenient for more accurate adjustment. The disadvantage is that I have to find a very good reference, which is actually very difficult, because if you follow the animation reference of a real person, then the animation character will not be too exaggerated. It can only ensure that every action is correct, but it has no sense of animation. Another disadvantage is that the reference is the side or three-quarters of the side, which means that the hand movement on the other side will be blocked. Sometimes you need to think about the blocked animation, which is difficult.