23/02/2023 Walk Cycles - Experiment Research

After having filmed my emotive movements, I decided that it was best to also go back to the basics of animation. I think that it s important to be able to animate a walk cycle. I decided to experiment on two different versions of walk cycles.

At first I thought it would be okay to just film myself doing a basic walk cycle, however, since I am researching body language as well throughout my research, I thought it would be best to also film myself creating a stylized walk as well.

WALK CYCLE

Walk Cycle by dermot on www.angryanimator.com

(1) I found an image online that would help me understand the movement of a walk cycle. So far as I have noticed there are different positions the body moves during this procedure:

• Contact - One of the legs is touching the ground before it raises upwards

• Recoil - When one of the legs starts to bend as the other has more weight and force on the ground

• Passing - When both legs overlap each other within the movement

• Hight point -When one of the legs is at the highest peak as well as the body.

Throughout this diagram, I also noticed that the body isn't always consistent through its position. The body sort of bounces up and down depending on the position of the legs as well.

For example, since one of the "high point's" legs is fully bent at a peak position the other, is fully stretched out which helps push the body upwards. Being able to analyse the diagram to this extent, helps me understand more of the body movement rather than just me trying to copy and mimic it.

An artist I looked at interestingly was Eadweard Muybridge (3). Muybridge was an English photographer who was known for his frame-by frame photography of motion. He is most well known for his art piece 'The Horse in Motion'.

Horse in Motion - Eadweard Muybridge (15th June 1878)

I felt as though his work was extremely appropriate for my research since it helps me understand the motion of the body through the different poses within his works. However, since I am not animating animals and I am animating a human, I decided that it was best to be able to find an example from his works of people.

Man Walking from Animal Locomotion - Eadweard Muybridge (1887)

Walk Cycle - My video reference

So, I decided to film myself, again by using the University's facilities to be able to film myself properly and try to analyse the movement that I wanted to do.

Attempt 1

This was my first attempt on filming myself. I can already tell I feel extremely awkward and shy while trying to film this. The reason was because I kept on overthinking the kind of movement that I wanted to do. I can tell that it looks mechanical since my hands are properly placed on my hips and that my hips aren't moving naturally with the legs as well as the movement of the upper body.

Attempt 2

This attempt was a lot better since I finally decided what type of walk cycle I wanted to do. It is pretty stylized in itself but I still wanted to make it simple and effective. So, as I was receiving feedback it really helped me understand again the body a lot more through my attempts. I feel as though this felt like an extremely calm walk cycle but it is still bouncy in its own way. I liked the idea of the head pop but I felt as though I should try to focus more on exaggerating parts of the lower half of the body instead of the top half.

Attempt 3

This was my final attempt with the walk cycle reference. I felt as though this was the most effective since I was able to improve from my previous two attempts. The reason why I feel this is because the way my body moves feels a lot more natural and it is a lot more slow paced compared to the other attempts. Another thing to note is that, I really tried to experiment a bit with weight so this reference feels as though it is extremely light with the movement. I really enjoyed the flowy movement of the wrists and hand since it shows this calm character throughout my movement.

REFERENCES

(1) Dermot (2014) Tutorial-2 : Walk cycle, ANGRY ANIMATOR. Available at: https://www.angryanimator.com/word/2010/11/26/tutorial-2-walk-cycle/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).

(2) Ninascherer (2015) Research: The walk cycle, ninamation. Available at: https://ninamation.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/research-the-walk-cycle/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).

(3) Eadweard muybridge collections (no date) Eadweard Muybridge Collections. Available at: https://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).

16/02/2023 SCARED CHARACTER - REFERENCE FOOTAGE

This experiment was probably my favourite one out of all of them. The reason why this was my favourite was because it was the most natural for me to feel. For this experiment, I was easily able to think about things I was scared of. The main thing being bugs. I think it is extremely easy for people to feel the emotion fear since it is always extremely unexpected. So, that could also be why I get scared easily.

Even though there were a lot of versions, I will only show the ones that display a few differences between each other. The reason for this was because I wanted to show the development of the emotion throughout the act.

The line that I used for this experiment was "It's alive! It's alive!" from Frankenstein (1931).

The original video is here:

DIFFERENT ATTEMPTS

Attempt 1:

As usual, I had to have a basic understanding on what type of movement i would be working with. I really liked the idea of the crawling since it helped build suspense. However, I feel that the suspense is ruined by the abrupt shift in mood through my acting.

Attempt 2:

I was able to create more suspense but again this attempt wasn't effect since it felt extremely rushed through the reaction. The only good thing I can say is that I really liked the shake of the hand as well as the little jump that helps emphasize the fear.

Attempt 3:

After reviewing this attempt, I felt as though I was able to create more of a suspense through my acting. I was able to properly grasp the anticipation of the scene in a more effective way. This is shown, as I point at the ground slowly, before rushing upwards and getting scared. I also liked the transition of the finger pointing to the hands being placed near the face since it helps emphasize the shock.

Attempt 4 - Final Attempt:

I believe that this was the best version of my acting since I was able to take in the feedback properly. I feel as though I was able to nail the idea of suspense through my sequence. By doing this, I got to stretch out the beginning a lot longer so I can really set the scene before trying to slowly move backwards.

In addition to this, I was able to not make the scene feel too fast but quick enough that helped express confusion and shock through my movements. I notice this from the way I jump backwards on my tip toes as well as through the hand movements.

All in all, I think experiment was extremely successful and I was able to understand more of the idea of acting for animation.

15/02/2023 ANNOYED CHARACTER - REFERENCE FOOTAGE

So, in the end, this experiment was also quite tricky. I wasn't sure on what type of annoyance I wanted to make. I originally, wanted to create a character that was extremely fed up of everything, however, the more I thought about it the more it felt too monotonous.

In the end, through the feedback that I had given during my acting session, I decided that it would be an interesting twist to create an amusing, child-like personality to my character.

The line that I ended up focusing on is 'Well here's another fine mess you've gotten me into!'. It is from 'Sons of the Desert' (1933).

I picked this because it was based off the iconic Laurel and Hardy duo, who went through their usual shenanigans throughout the film. I found it quite amusing since the character isn't fazed at all by the idea of getting wet and saying his famous line.

So, I decided to think, what if there was another approach to this scene? What if he was annoyed? What if he showed anger and annoyance to the other character?

Due to these questions, it was how we concluded to creating a childish character.

Here is the original video:

DIFFERENT ATTEMPTS

Attempt 1+2:

This is a video a lot longer than the others, since it shows the criticisms that I had gotten regarding the acting that I had to do to be able to achieve the goal that I wanted. So what I noticed as I was doing my references, was that I had the energy through my vocals, however, I was unable to articulate the expressions that I wanted to do. As usual, we always started from a base so I could really improve on what I wanted to express to the audience.

So for the first 10 seconds (first attempt), my acting seemed extremely weak due to the fact I felt as though there was not enough emotion through my voice as well as my actions. The only thing I thought was effective, was the thump of my leg. But even still it felt a bit weak. As I had gotten the feedback after my attempts, it really allowed me to feel more confident. I realised that criticism may be hard but if I want to produce good quality work, then I need to make sure the references that I use our finalized in the way I feel content with.

In the last 7 seconds (the second attempt), I felt more confident and managed to get the expression and the movement somewhat correctly. I was also able to time my words again to emphasize the annoyance in my voice, while trying to thump my foot on the ground.

Attempt 3 - Final Attempt:

For the final attempt, this is when I perfected the acting for this character trope. Even though this was a tricky experiment, it felt a lot easier than the other emotive references that I had talked about.

I was able to recreate a 'whiney' kind of character through the way that I talked, as well as acted. I found it interesting that I was able to create a little bounce as I crossed my arms before facing sideways. I found it quite animated and jumpy. I was quite surprised that this was the point that I started to develop this bounciness into my work.

I managed to emphasize the thump of my feet on the ground while simultaneously saying the last word of my line which was 'Into'.

I found it fascinating that I also manged to highlight the letter 'M' in the words:

• Mess

• Me

Which really helps capture the idea of how the hypothetical situation messed up my character's mood in the scene. Little details like that helped conclude this experiment.