New Year New Project

Not strictly Cold Storage but we're now onto our next project. It's going to be a promo for my script Free Run. I'm gonna blog it so you can see how the newer version of Antics works and for me to see how much I learnt from last time!

OK, so it’s been a few months since I’ve done anything of substance with Antics. And now I have the latest version, 3, loaded with a bunch of new content available.

So I started with a “spike” – a quick prototype to see if I can get near the capabilities that I want in this animation. So I need a street - loaded the UK pavement from content. Then a decent character who looks the part. Having browsed locally I don’t have what I need. So I’m onto the website and browsing to find male child – a hoodie, just the part! Downloaded in 2 minutes and he’s in my set – smooth.

I created the first spike using male running, then a jump which worked well. Had to “interrupt” both animations to prevent him returning to naff standing position. The “Fall” animation didn’t really work as he falls on the spot and I wanted a forward roll after the jump – more searching of the content warehouse – man it really needs a proper tag search rather than hierarchy of folders - so Windows 95!

I then got him to run around a corner at a quicker speed but the auto-path created is rubbish and doesn’t look realistic.

So I created my own follow path and used that.

The problem is then blending between the end of the jump and snapping to the follow path. These transitions are always the problem and I usually use cutting between cameras and close up shots to “hide” them.

Running around corners is very upright and gives the impression of slowness so to get a dynamic pace I am going to have to him to lean. This probably means focusing on the upper body only and angling the whole animation so it looks like he is leaning in. More work.

The spike also showed that I will have problems with him jumping different levels as the jump animation will have him landing at the same height. Will probably get around this by creating a pose from the middle of the jump, place that in the air halfway down the steps and then have a starting and ending pose. Then use blend to get him to hump down. Will use this for roll also.

So need to check out all the animations and the poses to get me up to speed with the armoury I can use.

So this shows how a “spike” can get you lots of feedback with a small amount of work. I now have a few next steps laid out as well as challenges I will be facing for this project.

As well as focusing on these steps I know I also need to write out the story. I will also spike this by writing it quickly and roughly. This will throw out lots of ideas and questions around what I will need in Antics. I will note these as I go, thus building up my task list of things to tackle. Easy huh!