Scene 11 V20 — V23

Hello guys and girls and chaps and chappettes, been smashing away at the chase scene. Andy suggested adding some slight rotation/wobble to the body to give it a little more life — similar to what we had in the original animatic! It took a while to figure it out but I finally managed to come up with something:

Version 20



No head or anything as yet, as I wanted to ensure the body was looking good without any distractions... I think it's getting there, most definitely, and adding the wobble really does improve the whole thing.

The next challenge was the head. I asked Andy for some advice on what it should be doing and he suggested having it slightly follow the orientation of the body but delay it slightly, by just a few frames — so that as it rotates one way the head is just slightly lagging behind. It's quite tricky to accomplish in such a short amount of frames but I'm going to keep playing around with it.

We spent a fairly frustrating afternoon trying to figure out exactly what the head should be doing — we tried about a million different things but only a few of them seemed weren't too painful to look at. We've still not reached a decision on the head so I'm posting up a few of the ones we came up with so you guys can examine them in your own time and see if you can come up with any ideas...

Version 21



In this first version there was no rotation or anything applied to the head — simply an up/down forward/backward sort of bobbing going on. I thought it might be an idea to try and get an idea of the vertical movement before worrying too much about any rotations and such — proving to be trickier than I thought. It's quite difficult to figure out how the head should be moving in this scene. In an ordinary walk cycle a bird's head is kept mostly still, mostly level, until the body moves ahead and the head thrusts to catch up as the bird steps down. This is quite tricky to achieve in this sort of cycle... obviously the movement of the legs is a little different, and it's hard to figure out whether the head would stay level or should be pushed up/down by the body. Here we've just got it opposing the body — travelling downwards as the body rises and then moving upwards as the body drops (effectively keeping it level). The head bobs forward as the body is at the highest point. I'm not sure if it really makes any sense? Perhaps it will look better if we can figure out the rotation?

Version 22



This one's pretty much the opposite of the above version — the head bobs forward and moves down as the feet go down, more like in a conventional bird walk cycle. I think it looks, er... really weird though. Doesn't seem to work. At all.

Version 23



Here, on version 22, I've tried applying Andy's suggestion (with a slight alteration) — I copied the rotation of the body but rather than shifting it to the right, I simply reversed the rotation of the head. Unfortunately I don't know if the exact rotation will work with the head — it gives it this weird sort of round and round motion. Just looks a bit peculiar.

I don't know. I think the problem, as we identified earlier, is that the head is a little too... mechanical. The body, legs and feet are all moving continuously in quite a rapid, frantic motion and in contrast the head is quite controlled and steady. It's just difficult trying to figure out exactly what to do with it.

It's a tricky one, to be sure. If you guys have any suggestions or ideas of your own please let me know! :]

Scene 11 V11 — V13

Hey guys!

Following my previous post here're the first few attempts at getting those wings onto the crow. I'm afraid that, even though it's a relatively simple thing, it's actually been causing me some problems. I don't know if it's just where I'm so tired but I'm just having trouble trying to figure out exactly what they should be doing...

Version 11



First attempt — not too sure, it just seems really off to me. I think it might be because the shoulders seem too static — also, perhaps I got the movement of the wings the wrong way around? they sort of flex upwards as her body rises which I don't think makes too much sense... they should probably flex up as she drops to the ground, where the wind resistance pulls them upwards. Or something...

Version 12



Same sort of thing, only now the wings are slightly spread which might look a little better. I definitely need to limber up those shoulders a bit. Again, some problem — think the wings are backwards — they flex outwards as she rises up rather than the other way around.

Version 13



Sort of a combination — tried to speed up the wings a little to make them slightly more frantic and got them to sort of bend backwards/downwards as she rises. I think it makes more sense but it still looks REALLY weird to me — something about the wings just doesn't match up with the whole scene. Maybe it's where I've been staring at it so long but it just seems really hard to watch? Seems to be a lot going on — maybe with the wings it's just too "busy"?

I'll keep playing around with it a little, but any critique or thoughts are more than welcome... as always :]

Scene 11 V6

Hey guys! I've been slogging away over the past week, trying to pump out as many rough blocks of each of my scenes as I possibly can. I'm going to post 'em all individually rather than in one huge post, so they're easier to find later on.

Here's a rough draft of the chase scene so far...

Scene 11



I spent the better part of two days mucking around with those bushes and this is the absolute best I can do (in terms of composition). I'm really sorry, I know it's not exactly what we wanted, but either I'm not clever enough to figure out anything better or there are no other ways of doing it...! This something like my 6th attempt, and I know there are plenty of problems with it — I just thought it would be a good idea to take a break from it for a while...!

I think I need to extend the bushes into the distance a little more so they don't cut off so suddenly, and I should also make them a little smaller on the horizon too.

I tried to at least add a little depth by creating multiple rows of bushes so that they wouldn't appear so flat. At the moment they all move perfectly in time with each other which looks a bit silly, so I'll offset them a little so that the rows at the back move a bit slower or something.

The speed of the ground and the bushes isn't quite synchronised with the crow just yet; I still need to make a lot of speed adjustments, but at least they move relatively seamlessly.

I'm not sure about the crow's run cycle; it took me ages to try and get it looking right and I'm still not totally happy with it. I tried to "animate" it a little more so that it wasn't so choppy and lifeless! I'm not keen on the head — it's a bit static, so maybe I'll try and loosen that up a little more. I think once we get the scarecrow in there though it won't matter so much!

Still... it's a start...! :]