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Performance and Character - Walks - Limp

Shin Splints 

My last attempt in 2-D was a bit of struggle but i think i had found my feet using Adobe Animate. I knew that my Maya skills were far less developed and I want to able to animate in 2-D and 3-D, so I couldn't put off Maya much longer. I had a talk with Johnny and James where i went wrong with my first animation and they both suggested that working in a stepped mode may fix my problems and help define clearer posing. 

Character Bio

Name: Zack

Age: 24

Height: 5'9

Weight: 135 lb

Background: Born in London, his mother died when he was 4, and then moved to Liverpool to live with his father. 

Personality: Highly energetic and unable to be still. Has a bad temper and is easily frustrated. 

Hobby: playing football.

Occupation: Works in call centre.

Pets: N/A

Friends & Family: Mother died when he was 4, currently lives with his father. Has 3 close friends who is very dependent.

Where is it set? In Liverpool leaving a football pitch.

What is happening? He is limping to his car to go home.

Who’s there? Zack  

Why is it happening? He pushed himself playing and injured his leg.


Animating


I found that i struggle to animate without a reference and recording myself isn't really possible without having someone hold the camera. A tripod would help fix this issue but i don't see myself carrying around a tripod wherever i go. However i manage to find a fairly good animation reference on YouTube, which was slowed down and had a grid to aid me.





I found that the stepped mode went surprisingly smoothly and didn't have really any issues. As you can see I placed all my key frames one after another.I found that all the poses need to be on the same frame because otherwise it'll start jumping around a lot. Another small issues i would say i did have is that when i stretched out the frames some of the frames didn't snap to a whole key frame So i have to key frame them again properly. James showed a simple snap method in the graph editor which i will use in the future.


When interpreting the stepped mode in to spine i tried to auto spline everything but quick realized that wasn't going to work, however it did show me that i hadn't keyed properly so i went back and keyed everything. After that i individually selected each handle and auto-ed each translation and rotation, it was a fairly quick process but tedious.





In conclusion, he moves fairly quickly but i felt like it showed the energy the character normally has. Johnny also suggested having a 'hook' in the shoulder to exaggerate the limp. I also think that a head bob after contact would help portray the weight a bit more. The best thing i gained from this is that I'll be using stepped mode from now and hopefully ends my battle Maya. 
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