Advanced Animation - Final Project: Action Animation

26.11.2024 - 30.12.2024  / Week 10 - Week 15
Adriena Tan Yan Zi / 0351236 / BA of Design (HONS) in Creative Media
Advanced Animation
Final Project

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Instructions 

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Final Project: Action Animation

For this project, we are required to animate a 5 - 10 seconds physical action sequence. We are to set the settings as 24fps, 16:9 aspect ratio with 1280 x 720p resolution. These action could be sports, fight scenes, dancing or just an expression movement as long as it is conveyed by the whole body. 

To begin, Sir showed us examples of various movements we could animate and introduced us to a YouTube channel that demonstrates actions from multiple angles. This resource was particularly useful for animating actions from different perspectives. Sir even selected a video from the channel, downloaded it, and demonstrated how to import it into Blender to start animating.

We were guided step-by-step on how to animate the chosen action using the video as a reference. 

Reference

Initially, I planned to animate the infamous Pokémon dance that’s popular all over the internet, as I thought it would be a fun project. However, I couldn’t find a version of the dance that included all perspectives. So, I decided to explore the YouTube channel Sir recommended for inspiration. 

Reference #1

Reference #2

In the end, I chose a fight scene as shown in reference 2 that I felt was within my skill level and doable for me.

Storyboard

camera angle storyboard

Blender 

In blender, according to the instruction, we are supposed to split our animating progress into 3 parts. Progression 1 with blocking the movements, Progression 2 for polishing the timing of the animation and Progression 3 which is the final animation with the staging, expression and camera movement. 

Progression 1: Blocking

video sequence & preview

First before i start, I need to import the file into the sequence and preview so that i can post all the extreme poses and breakdown poses frame by frame. 

posing extremes

Here i am posing on of the first extremes of the actions once i have identified them. I made sure to view them from multiple angle so that the pose looks accurate which how the body bends the placements and rotation of the legs and arms. I tried to keep to rotating with the help of the rotation sphere and made sure they don't overtwist. 

turning

For the turning, the character body had to already be on the floor with only half the body supporting his whole body weight in order to make a swifty and smooth turning. I had to refer multiple time to see how the hands, arms and how the legs expands and retracts as it was doing the spin. Throughout the posing i am using FK as it gives me more control over each joints of the character. 

landing

After the turning, I had to make sure the character land properly as where he stops turning and get his position ready to stand up. I had to double check the twisting of the foot as from the the tuning to the landing the foot had to rotate a lot to step properly on the ground to stand up. 

interpolation type

Once I'm done blocking the poses, i went ahead and applied  the interpolation type constant key as mentioned in the instructions. By doing this the animation looks choppy but gave us a clear view of each of the poses. 

Final blocking 

Final blocking. mp4

Progression 2: Polishing

Adding in betweens

To start off the polishing stage, I noticed some choppy parts and the punch lack luster as if it doesnt have anticipation. So i exaggerated the anticipation pose and exaggerated the end punch too to give the whole punch a bit more impact. 

Deleting extra keyframes

I consulted Mr Kamal with the work i have thus far and he suggested that i should delete a few more keyframes in between to make the overall animation look more smooth and even if i want to add, I can consider only adding 1 in between each action. So i continued to revised while deleting and adding some necessary keyframes to smoothen the animation. 

Posing with 1 axis #1

Posing with 1 axis #2

With the consultation by Mr. Kamal, he also suggested me to only turn the arms with movement with specifically 1 axis of the rotation as the overall movement would look more cohesive and smooth. I went back to my initially arm movements and tried to revise them to only rotating them with one axis as demonstrated by mr kamal. 

Animating eyebrows

Posing the eyes blinking

posing the smirk

After I'm done refining the movements and achieve the effect that i wanted, i moved on to animating the animation with the preset expressions and some i tweak them and pose them completely differently. Since it is a fighting scene, I imagine the character would have an angry expression on and in the end he would be pleased with the amazing movements the just whipped out and ended with a smirk. 

Refining with graph

For the final idling movement in the end, I reckoned i can smoothen the way he bounce front and back with the graph. 

interpolation type

Finally, I added the interpolation type bezier as suggestion in the instruction. 

Final polishing 

Final polishing.mp4

Progression 3: Final Animation 

For the final staging, i tried to went on Sketchfab and explore what kind of environment would be suitable for be to display the action. I found some old streets, abandoned buildings and in the forest 3d model which i though would be suitable but in the end i went with the abandoned building with interior and downloaded the file in fbx and imported it into Blender. 

 

SketchFab browsing

Importing textures with shader editor

I imported the model into Blender but it doesn't come imported with the provided textures so I had to switch to shader editor and add the textures in manually with the nodes.

 

Adjusting the lighting

After i placed the character in the building where i think would be suitable for him to perform the action, I moved on to adjusting the lighting as it is initially too bright. I took away some lights and change the remaining light colour to a warm hue to make it seem like its the evening when this event is happening and added and area light near character to showcase his expression throughout. 

Posing the camera

Then finally, I set the camera and keyframe the different angles according to the storyboard that I planned out and keyframe it with the location, rotation scale and custom properties. I also time the keyframe where some of the parts need to be slower to capture the movement like the kick spining part where i have it slow motion. 

Final animation 

final stage. mp4

Final submission

Final compilation

Final animation with music.mp4

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Feedback 

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Reflection