Animation! Exaggeration Assignment!

 Promised I would be back with some animations, so here is me keeping that promise! 

I've been busy with a multitude of Mocap projects, so I'm happy I got the time at all to do some KEYFRAME ANIMATIONS! I have been cracking at this project for the past month and a half and I'm really happy with how far it came. I started with just some poses and then brought it all together into an animation. 

So, I figured that an awesome place to start for my first animation assignment of this semester would be one of my favorite childhood movies-- Air Bud! I used to watch these movies all the time. I rented them from Blockbuster with my parents and brother. I am really dating myself by bringing up this information, but I LOVE Air Bud! 

Since I had a lot to work on with my quadruped animations from last semester, I really wanted to challenge myself and work with a quadruped character, so Air Bud it was! 

I chose this clip from the movie, just a little section of Buddy shooting a basket! 

I also used this other video as reference, as the Air Bud scene shows a lot of camera cuts and front views. Those are helpful, but I really needed to get the poses right for this dynamic animation.

My main goal with this animation was not quantity (or number of seconds), it was just getting the action right at all. I did a lot of behind the scenes studying of animal motion, particularly in dogs. I also studied a lot of Maya books regarding the Graph Editor and tangents. I'm still getting the hang of it! 

I also worked a lot with the Motion Trail feature this time, which really helped out with the ball! 

I'm going to drop a few of my iterations for this animation below! Let me know what you think! This was a big endeavor for me, but I'm really happy I was able to push through it. 

I feel like I'm getting "used" to 3D animation now. I'm not perfect at it, but I'm really trying my best and I hope I continue to improve! I'm learning a lot and want to keep learning and applying that knowledge every day! 

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported and helped me on this journey. I'm truly thankful for all of the help I've gotten and all of the support I've gotten, too! Thanks so much for taking the time to look at my stuff; it means the world to me. I'm thankful for you! 

I hope you enjoyed looking at my stuff this week! Looking forward to working even harder on some other upcoming projects!