Big Hero 6 Animation Study

I've been having a lot of trouble with my current assignment. The weight hasn't felt as great as I want it to, and the character doesn't seem to feel alive. So I decided to do a weight study this week. I downloaded some new rigs and really wanted to try it out, so here it is!

So here's the study and what I've learned from it!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's not perfect at all, I don't think I'll fix it just because it was supposed to be an in-the-moment study. It still feels a little floaty, the landing after hitting the wall doesn't feel quite right and something about the kick still doesn't feel right, and I should have made the arc nicer on the last step of the run and I should have fixed that floaty animation in the end. But enough with the bad, let's go over what I learned!

Here's the reference I followed. In case you don't already know, it's from Disney's Big Hero 6. I chose this one because it's a full body shot and it was easy to follow because the camera move is so general.

So let's examine my animation from the beginning forward. I won't go over the running sequence in the beginning because it's so short and basic, so I'll start right when he jumps into the wall. The text will be above the picture that I'm going over, just to clear that up now.

He comes down from the apex of his last step and crouches pretty low and leans forward into an off-balance pose. The weight at this point is pulling him forward and he's preparing to slam into the wall, so he brings his arms forward.
His screen left arm is the first to contact, you'll notice his foot isn't rolling like it should be... I actually just noticed that. But it happens pretty quick so it's not too big of a deal. I could have pushed this pose further, he's kind of just a straight line as far as his line of action goes, but it's kind of an in-between pose of two extremes.

Here he's completely contacting the wall, it happens I think two or three frames after the last picture. He does cushion himself with his screen left arm so that he doesn't hurt himself so it's not a SMACK kind of hit. His screen right foot/leg bounces off of the wall, that was really fun to animate, as well as his screen right arm sort of slapping the wall.

After the slam against the wall, he lands in a semi-crouched position. He really absorbs the weight into his feet. And he holds that absorption for his step back and just into the jump.

Here he is at the top of his jump, this part took the longest. I played around with him jumping straight up and a little bit back, but it kept looking horrible. So I made him jump toward the wall, very slightly, and brought his arms all the way up, following my reference.

As he kicks, his arms come to his side and he falls onto his screen right foot again. It took a little while adjusting my curves to get him to look like he gets pushed by his leg. But the reference was there, so it didn't take too long.

Here are the last three, the hops. His arms were really fun to animate in that circular motion. The foot placements took forever, but I realized they're KEY to making this animation look lifelike. Without realistic foot movements, the animation would have no life at all.

So, I learned with this assignment that it's really helpful to have clean curves, delete all of those extra keys that play no role. Move out the tangents to match what the keys were doing. It really helps the smoothness overall. Watch Victor Navone's Spline Tutorial for more information on clean splines.
Another thing I learned is that foot movement is an absolute necessity to realistic animation. People are constantly moving their feet around. They're always shuffling, just check it out next time you're in a public place.

I hope I could share any helpful tips, next test I do I'm going to record my screen and make a time-lapse or realtime video to upload here.

Here's an extra video I did of a new rig Animation Mentor released called Sarge!