I started out by going back to the basics through a video that was placed in the Animation Facebook Page by Becca. I found this clip to be very insightful to me as I believe it will help me with my walk cycle later on in the Project.
Below is the clip-
While thinking about my approach to this section of the assignment I decided to narrow my choice and focus on an Animation Studio of course I will look at many other sources of course. I have chosen to look at Walt Disney Animation Studios as I believe this is most fitting as I have looked at the company in the past for various reasons and I think it’s only fitting to continue on in research of this company as Disney is the main reason I want to be animator and has been inspiring me for many years.
To begin my research I looked at articles revolving around the 12 Principles of Animation focusing on Walt Disney. The first article I looked at was called “Understand Disney’s 12 principles of animation”- Reference- https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/understand-the-12-principles-of-animation
To start this article they looked at a video created by Vincenzo Lodigiani called “The Illusion of Life”-
After showing the full clip of the principles they go through the 12 principles and deconstruct their findings into simple forms which I quite like as they make the understanding of the meaning simple and by using a simple animation it really brings out the animation principle that they are trying to explain.
My next step-
I remember this being posted into the Facebook Animation Page in the summer, I can’t remember who posted this video but I saved it for future reference and know I’m glad that I did as I would like to use it now.
While watching through this talk I discovered feelings that I too experienced as a young child similar to Brad Bird of; I want to make animation but how do I make animation. I always knew growing up that I wanted to do something related to film which is why I applied to the foundation course with Ulster University as I wanted to ensure that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of life and of course we did the animation class and I loved it and knew finally that this is what I wanted to do.
What I started to gather when Brad Bird was talking about Frank Thomas and Pinocchio was how to build emotion within your character, how to relay that information to the audience through your character. This got me thinking about what message/emotion do I want to rely onto my character when I do the walk cycle, how do I want the audience to feel, how do I want this character to be portrayed.
I believe this talk was very important for my research and I hope it will aid me in creating my walk cycle.
Next I began looking at different Disney walk cycles that I could find below are these walk cycles-
Robin Hood-
Meekos-
Scar-
Pongo-
Robin Hood-
In order to create unique walks that I have shown above I need to be able to create a basic a basic walk cycle for this I was using Richard Williams Animator survival kit that I’d had since foundation I’m glad I’m finally getting to use it correctly. I also found this article online which will be a great reference to me later on in this exercise.
Reference- https://rustyanimator.com/walk-cycle-animation/
Within this article they go over a basic walk cycle including what your rig needs to have in order for it to imitate life I found this article to be quite informative in what needs to be completed including the 4 poses, gravity, weight ,contact, passing and key framing. This was exactly what Alec had gone over in our Monday class which is extremely useful as it will aid me in creating my own as Alec provided a Photoshop file including the steps which were featured above but in more detail.
Below is a video I will be using in reference-
This video by Alan Becker is also very useful in making the process simple-
Next I began looking at blocking vs straight ahead animaion.
The first article that I found explained blocking to me perfectly-
http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/blocking
This article explains how blocking is used to create a foundation, communication, timing, arcs into your scenes. Which if I’m not mistaken is a technique that is being used above by creating a foundation with the 4 main poses which then aids in timing and arcs whch then inturn creates communication to the audience through your animated rig. I thought this website explained this in great detail and with the help of the videos you were able to get a clear understanding of what they were trying to explain.
For straight ahead I used this article to help expalin the principle –
I found this article to be very insightful and would refer back to it when creating my walk cycles. Below is a scene from the emperors new groove that demonstrates this method-
Reflection-
I believe this research was very helpful in aiding my walk cycles but looking back I don’t think I’ve achieved what I’ve set out to do. I think I was a wee bit ambitious at the start of this project and didn’t achieve what I wanted but I tried my best.
Shannon Murray - University of Ulster Animation 