Good Wolf's Walkcycle Test 1

This is today's first attempt in animating the basic quadruped walk cycle. It is not stylized to suit the character type, I focused on basics first.. .which actually were/are quite hard to get . I have followed Williams' Animator's Survival Kit.



7 hours of animating and I have a pain filled walkcycle. At the moment it looks like the wolf is walking rather in pain. :D But it really helps as a starting point to spot the problems and areas of focus. All in all, this 1 minute long animation is a luxury to focus on quality instead of the quantity, which was the case in 4 minute long Ivan the Bird animation. I find that after this exercise I’m in a much better position for the future attempts. For example, there is way too much action in the upper spine (neck area). Also, there are some problems, which I guess are coming from the rig: legs twitch at times.

Also, as I was animating other problems became evident and I attempted to fix them, such as skinning problems, or shape deformations in legs particularly ( I now have created an overall blend shape sitting on top of all the other ones, so that geometry could be easily altered from scene to scene if needed )

So… 6 seconds of arguably crappy animation, but it doesn’t feel like a loss today. And hopefully during this week's time there will be those better animations.

Ident Animation

Near in the future there should be quite a few new videos released with tests of animation, character turnarounds, (possibly production video) , so I needed a little "signature", simple but a more sophisticated than the still image.




And here is the revisited version:

Researching Quadruped Animation

The project is stepping into other stages of animating. A challenge of animating quadrupeds asks for some better research into approaches and techniques. To start with I have looked at real life references. BBC Motion gallery  and Frame Pool websites offer a great deal of sources.

For instance there is a variety of videos of wolves and dogs in differing  situations. Time lapsed videos and those X rayed ones were the most informative. 

At 11 second club , a website for animators, the topics of how to animate quadrupeds directed quickly to Edward Muybridge’s Books. The animators have discussed the images are as useful as giving 70 percent of the entire animation. Therefore this will too be the key source for animating the wolves.

Another hugely useful thing to do was to read about the general breakdown of dog’s move. Apparently, there are mainly 5 types of movement dogs/wolves do:

Diagonal walking – diagonal legs move simultaneously at the same direction

Pacing  - legs on the same side of the body  move at the same time and direction, there is more roling in the body than in trotting

Trotting - (inbetween walk and sprinting) legs move in diagonal pairs, leghtening the distance of coverage , but not  in simultaneous order , so that one of the  feet is  on the ground

Sprinting – ordinary run

Galloping – moving in a series of leaps , front legs then back legs hit the ground , barely touching the ground. (looks like flying).

The animation will be aiming to build a believable yet stylized animation, so I also looked at some existing animations of quadrupeds. Most interesting seemd to be   Andreas Deja, animator of The Lion King’s  Mufasa character take.

 

 In his opinion building animation of animals one has to suggest real animal qualities but in humanized shape (with expressions and body language, behaviour). Also, there are no hands which help to express a great deal of ideas, therefore the concentration goes onto the overall pose attitude, angles of head, face. 
Some other references are films which showcase some wolves animation, such as The Secret of Kells (2009), Princess Mononoke (1997), The Lion King (1994).

So far this was the initial research before going to animating the characters.

Good Wolf's Resolution

 

The good wolf’s texturing was challenging in so, that all of his beauty comes from the painted surface texture ( whereas the evil wolf was already quite “textured” with loads of varying shapes) It took a fair while to solve it. Soft painterly shading gradually reaches a defined patterns around the front area.

Again, for his texture resolution I used the standard colour pass and added ambient occlusion bake and bump passes. A note for bump: I tried to reach a snow qualities of his fur. A simple noise worked rather nicely. I believe now the texture doesn’t look like pottery painting.

 

Also, last time I haven't showcased the evil wolf's texture layout:

Evil Wolf's Texturing

Much like for the doll's texturing I've used mental ray shaders, colour pass and ambient occlusion bake-in. The Bump map was applied only for the face (Nose and around the eyes) oppositely to the initial idea to make it scratchy and worn. I've figured that a deity type of character perhaps wouldn't be physically "damaged" as it is more of a spiritual embodiment.

Development of WW: Character Rigging and Texturing

This week main focus was to finish rigs for both of the characters. The soft modification in the good wolf required some fixing, because some parts were collapsing as he is doing general moves. This was solved creating pose deformers.A very useful technique as I found it and am glad we were taught how to use it in our maya classes .

 For the evil wolf , his shield-like structure was asking for a disparate type of movement for his parts. I have created a pre-set animation for all 4 of his legs, so as they move an illusion of the separate muscles moving is suggested.

 The other part of the focus now is the texturing. Here is the doll’s colour pass finished.

 

I also used ambient occlusion bake-in and settings to quickly shape the outlooks. This technique, used for the first time, seems thoroughly useful now.

 

 I have started some developments on the evil wolf’s texture. The tweaked mental ray shader already it has 60 percent of the desired looks, so I’m quite excited what can be done further when all the passes will be solved separately

Good and Evil Wolves Rigs

For the good wolf to work I've followed a fairly basic quadruped rigging. It looks to be enough for the type of animation in The Wolves Within, but few fixes with pose deformers wouls still be needed. Also still waitting are blend shape models for the facial animation.

For the Evil Wolf I followed the base quadruped rig too. However I am pretty sure to go and set-animate the parts and look into some addition of other rigging solutions for finessing of the working of evil wolf.

Scale Relationship and UVs for Evil Wolf

Before going into rigging I wanted to find the scale relationship between the two characters. Making them the same hight, somehow made the evil wolf seem less capable. However, he was already wider and longer than the good wolf. I believe the glowing aura could visually compensate the lack of good wolf's size. I found this scale least conflicting.

Also, and finally, I have the evil wolf's Uvs done. Took longer that expected. But then, he had ..10 times more of details than the previous one.

Week of Modeling

It was of writting dissertation too..

After some while the evil wolf is resolved. It took good two days for body modeling and one for the head. The tricky part was to make it work as armour and as suggestion of body parts, which later have to function.

The good one was modeled last week

If there were lots more time, modeling could go into even finer details. However, I believe Leo's and my ideas for this character in animation should  be  enough. The only question I have at this stage is , does this model need UVs to be layed out? Cause the texture work for metallic ice supposedly will be coming from a more complex maya shader.

Modeling progress:

Also, some fynilising touches to the doll: face, trimming and posing.

youtube converter, limewire

Doll Model

The hand-made doll  for representation of soul. The model is finished in its basic form. I suppose greater detail and some other little props will be brought in Z-Brush.

October's Sketchbook

Latley I’ve been practicing my life drawing. Also, using the same opportunity, when after the hand is well wormed up, I’d capture some ideas , little thumbnail notes on some side projects, mainly illustrative paintings, some characters too. Also it would be time to develop some of those painting ideas I had.

 

Good Wolf's Model

The base mesh of the good wolf now is ready. The details of the body will be added in Z-brush and exported as either displacement map or normal map. But before doing this, I’ll model the bad wolf in the same way. So then I’ll have both of them ready for rigging and skinning . We’ll be able to play with them setting for animation, while working on detail maps (displacement, colour, and so on.)

II also add here the progression of modeling. Again, much like in drawing : block out first, detailing later, finessing last.

It required me to learn the anatomy and topology for quadrupeds, to prepare this model. But it then was quite a straight forward process. I’m quite excited the bad wolf is going to be  of totally different approach, looking forward to nailing it :]

Start of WW Production: Shape Translation Test

This is the base layout of the good wolf. For now it serves as a shape test, how drawn designs translate into maya. If after discussions all seem ok, I'll move to detailed modeling. Also, quite clearly, I'll have to research  geometry flow for quadrupeds as deformation in animation depends on it. Both, me and Leo estimated a week for each character's modeling ( texturing excluded ). We shall see how it goes.

Character Fixes

Friday we have discussed designs and if they work from the side and front views , for the wolves. Also, it was clear that the previous soul design was to distinctive where a more general design would suggest easier identification with it.

 

The wolf’s nose wasn’t following design language of the body that was changed. Also, in the front view, had various issues with legs, width, and head. Hopefully overall, now it is working much better. However, front view often tends to look strange, cause we are missing back legs and all.

For the good one, only little changes in leg positioning ( so it doesn’t feel like falling over) and tail proportions.

 More at the Wolves Within site.

Soul Representation Concept

At Wolves Within  discussions lead to development of soul representation concept. This one combines ideas from three other dolls. Also, in Leo's concept I noticed he'd draw it white so I gave it a go and this prooved  to diminish the sinister qualities  "soul " designs  had before, but keeping still the misteriousness.

It was guided, as always, by the reference sheet of native american dolls