As we only had to submit either the climb or the lift, I initially began by starting both and seeing which would be the pest one to polish. Though even at this stage I was leaning more toward the elephant one, due to its appeal.
I began both these animations using a custom rig created by my classmate Andreas. I had wanted to create my own but due to time and the fact that I'd never attempted creating my own rig before I decided it probably wasn't the best idea.
My first blocked out attempts for both animations resulted in a lot of sliding. I found out this was due to me using the main controller for the rig to move the character throughout the animation. As removing all animation from this controller would affect the whole sequence for both animations I decided to begin them both again. I also learnt some valuable tips from Andreas during class about using the reference footage to achieve better timing.
By the end of the day I had both animations re-blocked out at a base level.
Even at this level they were both better than the previous versions I had done. There was no sliding for a start, woo! I opted to proceed with the lift animation, couldn't resist the pink elephant ^_^ though I would also like to finish off the other one if I have chance...
Compared to my previous animations I feel that something clicked at this point. I think its down to finally understanding how to block out an animation properly using effective pose to pose, better understanding of timing, more organised keyframing and I also think I'm begin to develop a work process to tackling an animation. I'm not sure but it just feels like I understand a lot of things better and like all the things I've been reading (such as articles by Keith Lango and bits from various books I have) make a lot more sense to me and I'm applying what I've read to my work process. Guess the improvement shows that I am learning and developing which is definately a good sign!
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