Animated By Me

Images

Here's the planning and images associated with this week's exercise:

Well Week 7 means it's now time to throw a little character into the mix. Not that we're forgetting the bouncing ball, mind you. Oh no. It's just got a tail. He's called Tailor... Seriously.

I have to hand it to the folks at Animation Mentor, they really know how to plan a syllabus. I was saying to someone today that it's an exceptionally well put together one, as it builds week on week. You end up looking back at your earlier stuff after just a few weeks and it's like 'wow, I could do that so much better if I did it again!' That's progress, I guess.

This week, then, in the spirit of building on the last few exercises, is to put a little Tailor through his paces. The only guidance we were given in terms of the assignment is that there must be at least three bounces in there. Of course one has to bear in mind that this is essentially like the bouncing ball but with two exceptions: it's not dead, so it 'chooses' where's it going and it's got a tail which it either takes for a ride or which it uses to achieve something. Nifty.

I decided I wanted to have a combination of self-propelled jumps and a 'forced' jump, i.e. one with a springboard. I bobbed over to the obstacle course Maya file, got a hold of the springboard and then popped it into my quick'n'durty polygonal landscape. Bing! Tailor's Obstacle Course!

Other things to note in this exercise is that there's some overlap and drag with his tail, which is quite tricky to do. Essentially the force of the jump forces the root of the tail, and that force makes its way down the 'chain' of the tail. The net result of this is that the tail will follow the same path as the body, albeit slightly offset. There's times in my animation where this isn't the case, however this is typically where a force has affected the tail pretty harshly (like when he lands on the ground and so on.)

As always it's hard to tell at this stage just how successful it's been since I'm too close to the animation. However, I'm pleased with how it came out and I don't think I'd change much... which isn't to say others wouldn't!