Here's where I'm up to in blocking the fight scene so far..
I've been blocking Aaron as well as it is much quicker and easier to get the timing down straight away as there is a LOT of character interaction in this scene. It is probably the most difficult scene we're going to animate.
Since I'm not so savvy with Morpheus as Rachel is, she's going to go through it and tidy up Aaron's poses and make changes here and there where necessary.
Quite happy with the work so far but it can stand to have much more work done to it but the foundations are down now which is what we really needed. Saving now and sending to Rachel.
Here are the sketches I've done for the headlock part of the blocking. We had reference for that part so I sketched the key poses I wanted.
Rachel's been doing an excellent job of keeping our animatic up to date with all the most recent work we've been doing. Here is the most updated one so far.
We've now added the 2D clouds (Option B won outright) and I have to say I am very surprised at how much the overall look of the animation has improved. I didn't see it before but not only were the 3D clouds distracting they were also blending the animation together too much. The 2D clouds now look like they are in the background and are much more subtle than the previous clouds, allowing the focus to be on the characters which now seem to pop out a lot more.
I'm also glad I made them transparent because they look amazing when they go through the 'Jump' title (or when the 'Jump' title goes through the cloud). I do need to draw some more clouds from another angle for when the characters jump out of the plane but that's not urgent right now.
Going to pass the file on to Rachel so that she can block Aaron. Here's the sketches I did for the blocking. The sketches stop before Malcolm falls because the reference was a bit different to what Malcolm could do in the scene (branches were a bit closer than the 'branches' in the reference footage). I still used the reference for timing but I had an easier time working it out in Maya straight ahead as I could see the space I had to work in better.
Next I'll be blocking Malcolm in the fight scene.
It was suggested that we take individual control of some scenes (for example, I take control of this scene and say Rachel controls the fight scene) and block the entire thing ourselves. The main reason was so that we didn't have to pass it back and forth for timing and changes.
We've thought about it and decided that we were happier doing it this way, even if it's maybe a bit unorthadox. We've already started working the way we're working now (I primarily block Malcolm and Rachel blocks Aaron) and we discussed each other tweaking each other's timing or making minor adjustments to the other character and have agreed that it's fine to do so. So far we've had no problems working in this way. And as they say 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
The 3D clouds were distracting in the previous renders so it was suggested we go for a 2D background that would blend in with the overall scene better. I've rustled up a few different attempts at a 2D cloud background with the intention of picking one and using it in our scenes.
I dislike D. the most and like B. and C. the most. Rachel likes B. and C best too. I think I'll post this up on the Masters facebook group and see what the others think..
Clipped together some reference for the last scene (Tree scene). I'm going to go through and draw the key poses I want for the blocking stage.
I've started making a point of going through the reference and drawing the poses I think I'll use for the blocking. It helps me picture the character in the pose and I seem to notice the smaller movements better when looking at the reference closely. I'll think that I quite liked the curve of that movement or that it wouldn't work for the character and change it slightly. Basically I feel that I analyse the animation and plan a lot better if I take the time to go through the reference frame by frame and draw what I see.
Completed the swim trick blocking after fixing the arm. Might try to block another trick if this one isn't working but for now I'm going to move on to blocking the last scene as the blocking stage needs to be done soon.
This still needs more breakdowns to get a better idea of how it's going to look. However the animation needed for making the characters look like their falling through the air is a lot of flapping about and if I blocked that now it'll look weird and distract from the character acting as this stage. I'll leave that until we add the final breakdowns before moving on to splines.
During feedback this week, it became apparent that the hand stand trick was pretty weak compared to the rest of the poses. It wasn't really better than the previous pose so it was suggested to try something else.
Two things suggested were a swimming trick and a bigger, better back flip perhaps with more flare. Here's a WIP of the swimming trick and the quick stick man sketches I did to work it out.
As you can see, the arm's shoulder rotation has skewed. It's possible that I've knocked something and not realised until now, I can't find a way to fix it. To be honest, I'm not sure IK is really the best way to blocking the arm animation. I think I could get better results blocking in FK as I could control the upper arm, lower arm and wrist better, rather than control the entire arm from the wrist and using elbow vectors. I think this would achieve a better 'floaty' (not as in drifting but as if in the air, later I will building upon the blocking to look like it's being affected by air rushing past) this way.
Since I would have had to re-block the arm anyway due to not being able to fix the skewed rotation in one go, I decided to get rid of the blocking on both arms and re-block in FK to see if I could get better blocking.
Arm is now fixed and I've got both arms almost as blocked as they were before. They both need more breakdowns but I wanted to get the first round done so that I could finish blocking the trick. Breakdowns will be added at another time.
I think I've achieved a better blocking already, though the timing needs to be refined and it will look better once I've finished blocking the rest. I think Malcolm's left arm definitely looks better when he pulls out the sign. I remember having trouble with that part when blocking in IK. This time I was able to get a nice arc movement in the elbow and wrist and therefore the sign as well. Smashing!
Next I need to finish blocking his trick and sort out the timing. Then I will be done with this scene for the time being (unless there are problems, as always) and move on to the last scene for blocking.
