Getting Moving with Motion

So with rigging out of the way, I move on to the animation of the project. With 5 characters to choose from I was spoiled for choice on what to start with. In service of practicality I decided to start with the Fae, as I had recently finished the rig. This gave me the chance to test out the rig, and make sure there are no quick fixes to be made before the other animators get around to it.

As I did the Dragon rig first, there was little point starting with the animation on it, as it has been pretty extensively tested by the anim team, who've been using it for a couple of weeks now. The results seem positive, and I've picked up a few ideas on what to do and what not to do from observing how they've been using it. Mostly, I've found the more viewport controls there are the better, and that the vast majority aren't using the filled controllers, so in most cases they won't be justifiable in terms of the time they take to set up.

But anyway, on to animation! I started out with the death animation. My first run wasn't going too great, so I stripped it back and restructured it. The second version works a lot better, I think, and has a lot more force to it. This willbe the basis for the death for high power impacts, like the centaur attacks or the Bark Basher hit.

Next I started on the sprint animation. I wanted to really push this one as its got to be an exaggerated difference from the regular run animation. I think the basic idea is working, but the animation itself needs a lot of cleaning up and sorting out. At the minute his hips and torso seem to be some kind of separate entities. The feet are doing odd floppy things at the moment too but I'll keep working at it.

A start at an animation where the player loses balance after the Bark Basher hits the ground. It didn't really work. But it is amusing.